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/ 2Q 1893 



AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL 



REMINISCENCES 



OF 



DAVID JOHNSTON, 



AN 



OCTOGENARIAN SCOTCHMAN. 



oJj 



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LIBRARY.! 



CHICAGO. 

1885. 



4* 



By Transf ef 

P.O. Dept. 

Mar2306 



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§&&icvAion. 



dedicate this little volume to my wife, the mother of my dutiful chil. 
dren, my faithful friend, my able adviser in the critical hour when to 
save, advice was necessary, the sharer of my joys, and the 
loving participator in all that tended to darken my exist- 
ence for upward of half a century. In so doing the 
author may be allowed to remark that this dan- 
gerous venture emanated not from her, but 
from Margaret, our second child (now no 
more with us), indorsed by many 
sincere friends, on the perpetu- 
ation of whose kindly feel- 
ings I mainly rely. 

DAVID JOHNSTON. 



CHAPTER I. 



INTRODUCTION. 



1 ' Cope sent a letter f rae Dunbar, 
Charlie, meet me gin ye daur ; 
It's then I'll shew ye the airt o' war, 
Gin ye meet me here i' th' mornin\" 

A Challenge of the Eighteenth Centuty. 

" f^\ THAT mine enemy had written a book," was 
V^/ the splenetic utterance of one of the olden 
time. Now, I am by no means certain that I can lay 
claim to that degree of respectability which entitles 
one to an enemy. One of the aphorisms of my native 
land has it : " They are of sma' worth wha' hae nae 
enemies." Should I have the honor to possess an 
enemy, and fail to meet him in the true Caledonian 
fashion, face to face, and should these reminiscences 
ever meet his eyes, he may be informed, while he 
chuckles in his sleeve, that the remains of the dear 
lady who inspired this weakness lie in Rosehill ceme- 
tery, Chicago, 111. I say and sing: 

7 



8 AUTOBIOGKAPHICAL KEMIKISCEKCES 

" Wha kens but this bit humble line 
May kittle up the Sacred Nine 
An' waukriffe Scottish muse. 
Tis penned to please my second bairn, 
And tho' a wee o'er auld tae learn, 
I couldna weel refuse." 

It is now thirty years since Maggie, in her witching 
way, extracted a promise from me to take such steps as 
should obviate similar complaints to those which I had 
often heard urged against the silence of my progeni- 
tors, on the passing events of their earlier days. 

John Johnston, my father, was born in Tranent, 
East Lothian in 1 741, consequently must have been 
about four years of age when the last battle but one was 
fought in Scotland, and that at his parents' own door. 
(The defeat of Sir John Cope at the battle of Preston- 
pans, 1745, by Prince Charles Edward Stuart.) Sub- 
sequently, after reading about the wild romantic hiding 
in the Highlands of Charles Edward Stuart, after the 
battle of Culloden, among a poverty-stricken people, 
whose fidelity remained unshaken by the tempting 
reward of 30,000 pounds for his head — dead or alive — 
and admiring especially the elevated and romantic 
character of Flora McDonald, I became inordinately 
inquisitive concerning all the events of that troublous 
period of our history, and consequently troublesome to 
the easy-going democratic old gentleman, who cared 
but little who was king. I used to lay siege to him in 
this way, to get anything out of him : 

" Faither, hoo auld was I when I had the measles ?" 

" Four years auld." 

" D'ye remember your carryin' me oot to see 
Lord Elcho's funeral?" 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON. 9 

" I do, my callant, but I'm sure ye ken but little 
aboot that ; you were ower young." 

" Young as I was, faither, I counted seventy-two 
carriages that followed the hearse, that hearse having 
' Memento Mori* in gold letters on its side." 

" Weel, what of that, Dauvid? I'm sure it would be 
far more profitable for you tae turn your attention tae 
the principles of fermentation, by whilk we can turn 
the guid gifts o' the Almighty tae the best advantage 
by making breed fit tae pit intae the stamach, instead 
o' wasting your time and troubling your head aboot 
wha shall govern th' kingdoms three." 

" But, faither, I only want to ken what ye saw, what 
ye heard, and what ye remember of the bloody work 
done around your ain faither's door in the rising of 
1745, which nowadays is in everybody's mouth, and 
you are the only Tranent man in the Nungate that 
kens on^thing aboot it." 

" Weel, Dauvid, if I should relate to you a' I saw, 
heard and remember of that tuilzie, will ye promise 
never to trouble me ony mair aboot wha sits on the 
throne, or wha aspires tae that uneasy seat? I'll just 
dae what I can tae please ye." 

" Thank ye, faither, but would ye have ony objec- 
tions tae a few o' ma frien's being present tae hear ye?" 

" Your frien's ! Wha are they ? " 

"Weel, Johnny Tamson, Willie McKay, Jock Purvis, 

Peter Elder, Jamie Shaw, Sandy Howden and 

1 Stop !' said my father. 'In the name of the auld kirk, 
when are ye coming tae the end o' your list o' frien's? 
And hoo did ye acquire them, Dauvid ? ' 

The first half of the above question was answered 



10 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

by my stating that the largest number had yet to be 
named. To the other half — they had lent me books. 

Some score of neighbors, at the given hour, were 
seated in front of a cheerful fire of Pencaithland coal, 
all eager to hear an eye and ear witness of the horrors 
of civil war in its wild ravages on the peaceful plains of 
Lothian. My mother seemed to betray a little uneasi- 
ness, caused by my oversight in failing to consult her do- 
mestic convenience for so many neighbors at a time, and 
next day advised me "never tae invite ony mair folk than 
ye hae chairs or cutty stools tae seat them on." But it is 
wonderful what a thrifty housewife can do to restore 
order out of chaos, and to create happiness with limited 
means. It was given out that an interesting account of 
the way in which the Kilties handled their broad- 
swords in support of Prince Charlie on that day, 
whereon the good and pious Colonel Gardner fell close 
to his own estate at Prestonpans would be given in my 
faither's house. 

My father had just set his sponge for the morn's 
batch, when coming ben, and greeting his neighbors 
present, I thought I could detect in his placid coun- 
tenance something akin to surprise at the extent of his 
youngest son's list of acquaintances. 

Indeed, I overheard a remark made (sotto voce) to 
my mother, never intended for my ear: 

" P e ggy> whatever may betide that daft callant of 
ours through life, he will never lack friends. God 
save us ! he makes them by the baker's dozen." 

What the dear old soul told us that night will be food 
for another chapter. 



OF DAYID JOHNSTON. 11 

It might be well to remark here, that the invited 
guests came not alone. Willie Shaw, the tailor, must 
needs bring Jock Samson, the flesher, and his son-in- 
law, Tarn Gourlay, the latter being tift at not being 
specially invited. Jock Purvis, the blacksmith, brought 
Jock Wilson, the cairtwright, and douce John Aitchi- 
son, the weaver. Poor Johnny Goodale, who was 
shortly after that date found perished under the snow 
near Grantsbraes, brought his boon crony o'er a taste 
o' the aquavitae, Robie Murray, the baker, and Sandy 
Howden, the brewer — in short, all the Nungate was 
there to listen to a description of the battle of Preston- 
pans by an eye witness in the fourth year of his age. 
My mother, one of the best of housekeepers, was evi- 
dently disconcerted at the crowd of unexpected visit- 
ors, and I burned for very shame at being the sole 
cause of her perturbation, and often subsequently mar- 
veled at my escape of merited punishment ; but I have 
sometimes thought that I stand indebted for impunity 
to a wee bit touch of the dear old gentleman's pride. 
Lest the reader should be at a loss to account for such 
interest called into play by the mere whim of a daft 
callant, he is reminded that in those days intercommu- 
nication was very limited, and the popular thirst for 
knowledge must have been increased from the very 
lack of these facilities which bless the present age. It 
is true that the massive brain of James Watt had 
matured into practical utility, but the greatest benefits 
arising from the potency of steam were reserved for a 
later and a happier epoch. Also true the active 
mind of Stephenson was ripening into that state of per- 
fection which would enable him to bless the world with 



12 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES. 

his revolutionizing locomotive, but failed as yet to con- 
ceive of a vessel with capacity to carry fuel enough to 
steam her across the Atlantic. True that Franklin had 
caught the electric spark, and trimmed his press so as 
to pave the way for these delightful literary advantages 
we are now enjoying. I am led to believe that the 
comparison of the past and present periods will serve 
to account for the credulity of the former, as mani- 
fested on that domestic occasion. 



CHAPTER II. 



11 Honor thy Father and thy Mother." 

ALL, except my father, were eager for the recital, 
whose seat was evidently one of thorns. Even 
the cutty stool whereon I sat was anything but easy. 
My fathers furtive glances brought home the painful 
consciousness of being the author of this dilemma, and 
made me regret the part I had taken in betraying his 
retiring, taciturn nature into a hasty promise, leading 
to such a painful scrape. However, the evening's 
entertainment went off with eclat to the speaker, and 
with delight to the audience (my mother not excepted). 
As for the guilty plotter of this drama, he was per- 
fectly carried away. On the following day I put my 
foot in it again. Molding the batch placed beyond 
the reach of the third ear, and intending to be compli- 
mentary, I ventured a criticism on his narrative of the 
battle of Prestonpans as being second-handed. 

" Second-handed ! You young scapegrace, what do 
you mean by such a term applied to me ? " 

11 Weel, faither, pardon me for the use of the wrong 
word. I was gaen to say that remembering but little 
yersel, you took up the thread of others and handled it 
grandly/ ' 

" Tuts, callant, for guid sake haud the tongue o' ye, 
and try and chaff thaebaps a wee bit better than ye're 

13 



14 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

daeing." After a long pause he added, " So you think 
they were pleased, Dauvid, wi' what I tell't them ? " 
" Pleased, father? They were delighted." 
"Weel, say nae mair aboot it, and if you should 
ever haver me into sic a position as that the second 
time it will be my fault, that's all." 

It was clear that whatsoever the gratification the 
narrative of the previous evening imparted to the 
hearers, it was anything but pleasurable to the narra- 
tor. Indeed it was foreign to his nature, for I never 
knew him to patiently sit out a lengthy discourse of any 
kind — not even a good sermon preached by his favorite, 
Dr. Sibbald, of Christ-like memory ; but he had given 
his word, and John Johnston's word was John John- 
ston's bond. He commenced by apologizing for his 
lack of memory, saying, " that for the little that I do 
know of the great battle I am beholden to others, 
especially to my father, Alexander Johnston, who 
remembered the rising of 1715 as well as that of '45, 
and who farmed a few acres of McCaddel of Cockenzie 
adjoining the low land whereon the battle of Preston- 
pans was lost and won. Also to my elder brother 
Alexander, who died in 1755, and who, accompanied 
by John Glen, his cousin, started on horseback for 
Edinburgh on the morning of the battle, little dream- 
ing that the hostile armies would so soon meet, and 
strew their peaceful fields with the dead and the dying. 
Their business in Edinburgh over, the two young men 
prepared to take the road home, but were advised to 
remain in the city till morning, as the road would be 
full of stragglers dangerous to travelers. Apprehensive 
of danger at home the two young men dared that of 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON. 15 

the ten miles of road that lay between them and Tran- 
ent, and took the saddle. They met groups of wild- 
looking men, speaking a language they could not 
understand, some of whom were laden down with what 
they supposed to be the spoils of battle. They were 
joyful and peaceable, but much fatigued, yet the appear- 
ance of drunkenness was nowhere to be seen among them. 
Ascending the rising ground whereon the Prince and his 
army had bivouacked on the previous night, and arriv- 
ing at the entrance of a steep lane called Birsley Brae, 
which leads down to the valley, the chosen position of 
Sir John Cope, and within sight of their respective 
homes, they congratulated themselves on getting back 
safe to their own native Tranent. In the uncertain light 
of the gloaming three men in the Highland garb ap- 
peared in front of their horses, saluting civilly in broken 
English the two riders, ' Shentlemen, we stand in need of 
three horses to carry us to Holyrood Palace. Please 
dismount, quickly. Being tired in pursuing those run- 
away red-coats we'll have to ride slow, and if you like 
to walk in our company, you can have your horses at 
the Canongate of Edinburgh, and all charges will be 
duly met at the Commissary Department of Prince 
Charles Edward Stuart, Commander-in-chief of the 
forces of his Majesty, by the grace of God King of 
England, Scotland and Ireland, in whose royal service 
we have the honor to be/' In war circumlocution is 
shelved, and there being no alternative the riders took 
the pedestrian mode of locomotion, and vice versaed 
with the trio, for the third kilty seated himself on the 
crupper of the stoutest horse. Descending the hill 
to Musselburgh Links, they found the highroad 



16 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

obstructed by a large crowd, assembled to have a view 
of the prince, who, at Pinkie House, was preparing to 
hold his levee at Holyrood Palace. Many of the sight- 
seers were mounted, and now was the chance for a 
third horse, to appropriate which was but the work of 
a few minutes. A sturdy farmer from Dalkeith was 
selected for the honor of not gazing on the Prince, for 
which purpose he had ridden six miles, but serving the 
king by walking six miles at the heels of his own 
horse with the somewhat distant prospect of being 
remunerated out of a depleted exchequer. But " needs 
must when the Devil drives, ,, and glittering claymores 
are potent in argument with the unarmed. Dismount- 
ing at the Watergate, the spokesman of the trio, who 
had it all their own way, thanked the trio who had 
nothing to say in the premises, and with a bow a la mil- 
itaire, wished them good-night and pleasant dreams, 
without even a ' deoch au dorais ' to cheer their weary 
retracing steps. My brother said that a peep into the 
Canongate was enough of Edinburgh that night. The 
result of the battle made all within its walls a perfect 
Pandemonium. While the Whigs hid their devoted 
heads the Tories were correspondingly uproarious, 
being, of course, joined by the Go-betweens, the largest 
class of the three. 

Great was the anxiety at home on account of the 
long, mysterious absence of the boys, and great was the 
joy over their midnight return. My father, who was 
tender hearted, could never be induced to dwell upon 
the scenes he and all the neighbors witnessed on the 
following day, and he said, " I am sure ye wudna' like 
to hear them yersels, and what the laddie can mean by 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON. 17 

belittling his faither by fleetching him to blather before 
his betters, I am at a loss to discover. Of course, ye 
dinna want me to follow that handsome, brainless chev- 
alier out of our ain Lothians, or tell you how he frit- 
tered away his time and advantages in practicing king- 
craft in the seat of his ancestors ; how, having a' the 
help that Scotland could gie him, he took his wild High- 
landers across the border and penetrated England as 
far as the toon o' Derby; how, at the council o' war 
held there, he like a' the rest o' his daft family, confound- 
ing reckless bravery with the quality o' prudence, voted 
in opposition to a' his officers, and would insist upon 
marching south and with his inadequate force taking 
London ; how on their way back to the north, they met 
with reverses in Cumberland and finally met the Duke 
of Cumberland on the fatal field of Culloden, who with 
one fell swoop crushed the futile attempt to regain 
that power over the United Kingdom which was so 
justly forfeited by the Stuart-like conduct of his big- 
oted progenitor, James II of England, VII of Scotland.'' 

Of the four specimens of that unhappy race as kings, 
we, as Scotchmen, have very little to be proud. From all 
repetition of such government, may the Lord deliver us ! 

Their predecessors, the Tudors, were tyrants, but 
there was dignity in their tyranny. The low, shuffling 
cunning of James I, who confounded his flippant con- 
troversial capacity with the quality of wisdom, com- 
pared unfavorably with the deceased Elizabeth. Of 
the baneful effect of their misrule poor auld Scotland 
came in for more than her share, and the bare remem- 
brance of having furnished the raw material brings the 
blush of shame to the cheeks of a Scotchman. 
2 



CHAPTER III. 



"Some are born with a wooden spoon in their mouths, and some 
with a golden ladle." — Goldsmith, 

THE night on which my father related his four- 
year-old experience to my particular friends in the 
Nungate, the flames of Moscow were proclaiming to a 
silly world the folly of war. Something must be said 
of my beloved parent during the sixty-nine years that 
intervened between the battle of Prestonpans and the 
terrible destruction of the Russian sacred capital. The 
theme is intoxicating, and in order to be brief I must 
curb my pen. Seven years of his valuable life were 
spent in acquiring a knowledge of a business (that of 
baker), which as many months would have sufficed to 
impart. In manufacturing the staff of life, the nearer 
he comes to the auld wife, the better the baker. Get- 
ting into business in his native town, he married Isa- 
bella Hay, by whom he had two sons and two daugh- 
ters. Looking on the profession of arms as a species 
of insanity, he was painfully mortified by his oldest son 
John's enlisting in the Royal Artillery, and after a year 
of soldiers' life in garrison at Woolwich becoming so 
enamored of the calling, that he resolved to induce his 
brother Alexander to follow his example. He had no 
difficulty in obtaining a furlough for that purpose, for 

18 



AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES. 19 

the brothers were valuable recruits, John six feet one 
inch and a half, Aleck six feet one-half inch, propor- 
tionately made, and twelve feet two inches of good stuff 
to be shot at for the honor of the king was not to be 
overlooked at the rate of twice thirteen pence a day. 

"War is a game which, were their subjects wise, 
Kings would seldom play at." 

But to return to my father. Being well respected 
he prospered in business, and in the course of a few 
years realized the wherewithal to build three stone 
houses on a piece of land which was, before the houses 
were finished, found to have been sold on a false title. 
Litigation ensued, and was carried on to the total ruin 
of his position in Tranent. In the true Johnstonian 
spirit he could not brook the atmosphere of his failure, 
and penniless he came to Haddington to begin the 
world anew. Not being privileged to the royal burgh, 
he commenced in business just outside the red tape 
boundaries, in the Nungate, making himself thirle to 
the town mills for his weekly grist, and paying custom 
for every basket of bread he sent into the town. 
Thanks to the spirit of progression, those imposts are 
now matters of history. 

The love of country is so strong within me that I 
feel tempted to venture a verse in praise of my beloved 
Haddington. 

Then patience, freens, while yet I sing 
O' Lothian's bonny Eastern wing 

An' o' its toons the chief — 
Whene'er the thocht comes in ma' pow 
It sets my auld heart in a lowe 

The name o' 't brings relief ! 



*>?0 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMLNTSCESTCES 

Sin' that day first I ga'ed my lane 
Or lap frae aff the custom stane, 

Has ne'er yet met my ee, 
'Mang a' the busy haunts o' men, 
A bonnier toon than Haddington 

On either side the sea ! 

'Twas here where first I drew my breath 
And closed my parents' een in death, 

And laid them 'neath the stane, 
Near by the Lamp o' Lothian's porch 
Which proved in ancient times a torch 

Tae Burgher, Hind and Thane. 

The bleaching field, alluvial haugh, 
Fringed wi' birks an' siller saugh 

In undulating line, 
Where far removed frae vulgar gaze 
The bonny lasses bleach their claes 

Knee deep in crystal Tyne. 

Nae wonder Scotland's saintly King, 
Indulging in his priestly whim, 

Sent Royalty tae the wa', 
And flew tae Tyne's sweet lovely banks 
To shrive, and offer up his thanks, 

And meditate the law. 

By Amesfield's slopes and Steinston brae 
The Royal poet lo'ed to stray 

Tae 'scape the world's din, 
In contemplative soul elate 
He fed the Kirk and starved the State 

Unconscious o' his sin. 

Oh Tyne ! across thy lovely wave 
The quoin and sacred architrave 

Their shadows deep he threw. 
Where now, alas ! those stately towers, 
Cloistered maze, and shady bowers 

Sae glorious tae the view ? 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON. 21 

The Abbey village, and the mill, 
The classic mind with dolor fill, 

And sorrowful emotion, 
In pointing out the lowly plain 
Where David reared this sacred fane 

In sanctified devotion. 

My father was thus left, not only penniless, but 
wifeless, childless, and landless. He lost his excellent 
wife by death, his sons by enlistment, his daughters by 
marriage, his land by fraud, and his pennies by litiga- 
tion. To counteract his penury, he brought with him 
good health, an indomitable spirit, a good conscience, 
and a physical personal aspect not easily matched. 

A young English traveler came along and touched 
a chord in a hidden part of Janet, his eldest daughter, 
which led to an interesting correspondence ending in 
the Scotch lassie becoming an English wife. The 
happy pair took up their residence near Tunbridge 
Wells, but whether she became thereby a Kentish 
woman, or a woman of Kent, I never could determine. 
She lived to be the mother of a large family, whom I 
visited in 1834. 

David Davidson, of the Commissary Department, 
of the Royal Artillery, laid siege to the hand of Mar- 
garet the youngest child, who was deemed, from her 
personal appearance, the belle of Tranent. The siege 
was crowned with success. A family sprang from this 
union of three sons and five daughters. The eldest 
son, Samuel, took up his abode as a banker in Kirk- 
caldy ; David was drowned off Peterhead ; the third 
son, Alexander, clerked in his father's office. The girls 
were all well married in Leith ; the eldest to Mr. Her- 



22 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

vey, the eminent lawyer in that town. Society in the 
Nungate was anything but pretentious, and John John- 
ston soon became a respected integer of it. 

Dr. Maitland deservedly stood at the top, but there 
were those who in point of general information were 
pretty nearly equal to the Doctor; prominent among 
whom was 'Squire Nisbet ('Squire by courtesy), the fruit 
grower at whose house the elite of the village sometimes 
held their meetings, and at which my father became a fre- 
quent visitor. Mrs. Nisbet had been dead some years, 
leaving two daughters to preside over the 'Squire's hos- 
pitable hearth — Mary, the eldest, already betrothed to 
Robert Allen, the oatmeal miller, and Margaret, of whom 
it was ^hinted, " she might dae waur than cast her een 
toward the tall widower frae Tranent." Gossip seldom 
errs in these matters ; nor was she wrong in this instance. 
Conforming to all the rules of immaculate society, Peggy 
Nisbet in due time became Mrs. John Johnston. This 
marriage was solemnized by the Rev. Dr. Sibbald, of 
the Established Kirk (notwithstanding the Nisbets 
were all Episcopalians), in 1798. Two sons and two 
daughters were given them, Margaret (who died young), 
in 1799; James, in 1801 ; my unworthy self, on March 
22d, 1803, and Elizabeth in 1805. 'Squire James Nis- 
bet had a brother George, who had been many years 
Land Steward with General Wheatly, of Lesney 
Park, Erith, Kent, one of Queen Charlotte's Equerries. 

George had been many years a childless widower, 
his domestic affairs being managed by his only sister, 
Margaret, who was found one morning in the adjoin- 
ing wood of Lesney all but dead from bruises on 
her head and face, inflicted by a blunt instrument. 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON. 23 

The crime was clearly traced, both by evidence and 
confession, to James Morgan, a brick-maker in Erith, 
who died the death of the malefactor at the county 
town, Maidstone. The old lady, by dint of her fine 
constitution, survived that dreadful treatment for many 
years. The first time I gazed upon the distorted, 
emaciated countenance of that poor old lady, I mar- 
veled at her tenacity of life. 

That day she declared to me that the most painful 
scene of the tragedy was giving her compulsory evi- 
dence at Maidstone, which sent a fellow-creature to the 
gallows. She survived this tragedy many years, and 
died upwards of ninety years of age. 



CHAPTER IV. 



" What's in a name? that which we call a rose 
By any other name would smell as sweet." 

THE effect of this dreadful event told fearfully on 
the mind of Mr. Nisbet, who in a short time 
evinced symptoms of mental derangement. In his 
lucid moments he would lament the loss of his sister's 
companionable qualities, and crave for that society 
which his local position denied. In that spirit, he wrote 
to his niece (my mother) begging of her and my father 
to part with one of their boys, to effect which he held 
out the most tempting inducements in the way of edu- 
cation, the disposal of his property, and so forth. The 
prospective advantages of this proposition my parents 
were in no position to resist. 

On the vote of the two younkers being canvassed 
on the subject I leapt to it with alacrity, viewing the 
whole thing as a Godsend-opening to my roving dispo- 
sition. Jamie, on the contrary, gave no signs of a 
desire to leave home. My heart leapt for joy that I 
should shortly see the great city of London, see Eng- 
land, and ride to school on a pony. 

Necessary arrangements were completed to the sat- 
isfacton of all parties, and the day appointed whereon 
my father was to carry me to Leith on the " Good In- 
tent" coach, and to put me on board of a smack for 

24 



AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES. 25 

London, when lo ! a brief note from Lesney, couched in 
the following terms : 

Lesney Park, County Kent, May 10, 1809. 
My Dear Niece : 

I hope you will pardon my absentmindedness. I find that in our 
correspondence I have overlooked that which I deem a very important 
matter. I have traveled back in the pedigree of the Nisbets for the 
last two hundred years and fail to find a David in the list. Taking 
for granted that your eldest son takes his name from my brother, I 
should esteem it a favor if you would send James instead of David, 
without any disparagement to the latter. 

From your affectionate Uncle, 

Geo. Nisbet. 

Thus were all my aspirations for the future nipped 
in the bud, for when was ever the rich man's request 
denied by the poor? My brother reluctantly assumed 
the position intended for me, and I, with a bad grace, 
undertook to fill his shoes at home. 

The great poet asks, " What's in a name?" My 
answer, if it could find expression, would be, " A young 
ambition crushed." At Lesney, for five years, every- 
thing went on satisfactorily till the 8th of January, 
1815. The very day on which the battle of New 
Orleans was fought, George Nisbet, in a fit of insanity, 
ended his days by suicide. Nothing now left at Lesney 
of an inviting nature, James resolved to return to the 
home of his fathers. During that short period many 
important events had transpired. After his unfort- 
unate campaign in Russia, Napoleon had resigned his 
power over France at Fontainebleau, and agreed with 
the Allied Powers to content himself with the title of 
ex-emperor in the isle of Elba, where he remained till 
the commencement of the Hundred Days, February 



26 AUTOBIOGKAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

12, 1814, which added one hundred million pounds to 
the national debt of England, a sum rendered insig- 
nificant by the result of Waterloo. During these hun- 
dred days our little town was the scene of great bustle 
and confusion. In addition to the regular barracks for 
infantry, cavalry and artillery, scarcely a day passed 
without soldiers being billeted on the inhabitants and 
regiments passing on their way to the seaboard, all eager 
to embark for the continent to meet the great hero in 
the coming fight. Then there was the local volunteer 
army, the yeomanry and militia, besides several recruit- 
ing, parties picking up the unwary stalwarts with the 
tempting " Geordies " peeping through the meshes of 
the silken purse. Forty pounds were given to any man 
who would leave the local and join the regulars. The 
well known warlike aphorism, ascribed to Sir Robert 
Peel, " That to preserve peace, a nation must ever be 
ready for war," is evidently an outgrowth of England's 
immemorial practice and policy. At what period of 
her history, it may be asked, has she ever been caught 
napping? Never has there been a period in which her 
eternal vigilance has been so severely tested as at the 
time of which I speak. An apprehension that Napoleon 
would by some means obtain a footing and make Eng- 
land the theatre of war was extensively entertained, 
and for once the people and the government united in 
straining every nerve in order to obviate such a calam- 
ity. Napoleon's breach of parole at Elba, his landing in 
France, his reception at Lyons, the conduct of Marshal 
Ney, embracing the man whom he was intrusted with 
an army to oppose, and his triumphant approach to 
Paris, all tended to strengthen the dreaded idea. 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON". 27 

So closed the memorable year of 1814, nor was the 
situation improved by the defeat of the English army 
under Pakenham on the threshold of the new year, 
1815, by the youthful arms of America under Jackson. 
Napoleon was received in Paris with open arms and 
with cries of "Vive l'Empereur!" He reviewed his 
army at the Tuileries, announced the return of the 
empress, and prepared to meet the approaching allied 
army. For that purpose he left Paris on the 12th 
of June, and on the 14th and 16th fought the battles 
of Fleury and Ligny with doubtful success. On 
the 1 8th the famous battle of Waterloo was fought. 
The brunt of the struggle was borne by the English 
under Wellington, which was rendered decisive by the 
timely arrival of the Prussians under Blucher. It has 
been computed that the French lost 50,000 men in the 
three days' fight. Napoleon returned to Paris and 
abdicated in favor of his son, then gave himself up to 
the English at Rochefort. The allies consigned the 
great chieftain to eke out the remnant of his days on 
the barren rock of St. Helena, where he died on the 5th 
of May, 1 82 1. Thus fell the man whose towering 
ambition and military talent brought the civilized world 
within his own personal keeping, and doubtless, if the 
humiliation of his fall proved proportionate to his 
former greatness, his mental suffering must have short- 
ened his life. 



CHAPTER V. 



" Friendship ! mysterious cement of the soul ! 
Sweet'ner of life, and solder of society ! 
I owe thee much ! " — Blair, 

AT this momentous period our little community 
- seemed to lose all its wonted simplicity. In- 
stead of that quiet, social kindness which characterized 
the inhabitants of this fruitful valley in my early day, 
there sprang up a restless desire to get speedily rich. 
The inflated price of the bountiful products of the rich 
surrounding fields had the baneful effect of fostering 
the change. The hideous deformity of war is ofttimes 
eclipsed by the spirit of selfishness. Still, bad as war is, 
it sometimes presents a whimsical phase, as in the case 
of Jamie Nicol. Jamie, though a carpenter and maker 
of the best saddle-tree in all that equestrian country, 
was not overladen with brains. Jamie had heard the 
good King George III panegyrized at the cross of the 
royal and loyal burgh of Haddington by the magistrates 
on the 4th of June, the birthday of that king of pious 
memory, which use and wont had molded into a duty. 
To witness this annual solemnity the lieges were duly 
summoned by the town band, consisting of bagpipes 
and a drum. Jamie never failed of this annual treat of 
seeing the wine when it was red gurgling down the 
throats of the chosen few to the health of the great 

28 



AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES. 29 

king, and the eloquence of this occasion aroused his 
patriotic feelings to such a degree that he became 
military mad on the spot. 

" Nae doot," said Jamie, " but the guid king's illness 
is a' owing tae sae mony o' his folk being just like 
masely , and added: " Frae this time forth I'll serve 
my king and country." But it was well known among 
his neighbors that Jamie, like his namesake king of old, 
preferred the sword in the scabbard to the same weapon 
drawn, and this was made manifest by his enlisting in 
the local militia, whose ready commissary rigged him 
up in such a way as to " scare his auld mither nearly 
oot o' her wits " when he "cam hame tae his four hours." 
The gibes of his risible friends were chiefly at the ex- 
pense of the unknown tailor who made his red coat. 
Jamie's military career was abbreviated by a serio-comic 
incident. He appeared, as instructed, to drill on the 
Haugh nearly opposite to his own cottage, the Tyne, 
which is deep at that part, running between. In mili- 
tary parlance, the place for raw recruits is the awkward 
squad, the drilling of which fell to Peter Faulkener, an 
old soldier of the American war, and an old rival of 
Jamie in business, nicknamed " The Pack," from his 
having, a few years before, sold portable goods round 
the country. Jamie was greatly mortified at the fact 
of being under the control of a man he utterly despised, 
and, on imparting the news to his mother, she trembled 
in the fear of a collision. On the second day's drill 
Jamie had forgotten part of his previous day's instruc- 
tion, and the small cane of Peter came in contact with 
Jamie's knuckles. " Damn ye, sir ! " said Jamie, throw- 
ing down his musket ; " dae ye think I could pit up wi' 



30 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

sic an insult at the hands o' ' The Pack?' " and leaped 
into the river, swam across, and like a drookit craw 
astonished the auld body just as she was preparing the 
tatties an' the herrin' for dinner. The corporal's guard 
detailed to apprehend the deserter having to take the 
bridge, gave the fugitive time to prepare for a siege. 
They found the old lady in tears and the invisible de- 
linquent fortifying his stronghold inside of his shop. 
The officer in command demanded Jamie's surrender 
"in the king's name," but found him proof to all en- 
treaties. At length when they threatened to tear down 
the building, his mother, knowing his passion for flowers, 
spoke to him through the keyhole, thus: " My man, Jamie, 
come awa oot. 'Gin ye stay there thae sodger bodies 
wull pu' doon the hoose, an' a' thae bonny floor-beds 
that ye hae ta'en sae muckle pains wi' will be trampit 
on by their unhallowit feet. Come oot, ma dear Jamie, 
for your mither's sake. They daur na' harm a hair o' 
yer h'eid." This proved the successful battering-ram 
against Jamie's castle, and out came the garrison, placing 
itself at the mercy of the conquerors, and never were 
conquerors more merciful. Most of the officers of the 
local militia were gentlemen of the neighborhood who 
had been beholden to Jamie for an easy seat in the 
saddle in hunting. 

Jamie was discharged from his Majesty's service 
with the letter " D " attached to the document of his re- 
lease, which deprived him of the privilege of doing 
business in any corporate burgh of the United King- 
dom of Great Britain and Ireland, which he laughed 
at, as the Nungate was field enough for him, particularly 
as the renowned reformer John Knox was born in the 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON". 31 

Giffordgate, within a few doors of his mother's cottage ; 
and that, with plenty of flowers, was glory enough for 
Jamie. 

When my brother arrived he was fourteen, and in 
order to retain fifteen pounds per annum in the family, 
which, in addition to a handsome legacy was left by 
the will of Mr. Nisbet as what was termed an appren- 
tice fee for seven years, Jamie was bound to our father 
for that term. I soon found that, being the stronger 
of the two boys, and there not being work enough for 
both, I expressed a wish to work in Edinburgh. My 
dear father was loth to part with me, and procrasti- 
nated for eighteen months ; at length, when I arrived at 
my fourteenth year, I desired to leave more emphatic- 
ally, and steps were taken to comply with my request. 
George More, of South Richmond street, Edinburgh, 
was a second cousin of my mother's, with whom (Mr. 
M.) I was bound for two years. Now, there never was 
in the galleys, nor in the West Indies, in the palmiest 
days of human slavery, a human being so infamously 
treated as was the Edinburgh journeyman baker of that 
day. Nor was Mr. More any more cruel than his fel- 
low tradesmen. It was simply fashionable to ostracise 
the class, and I had to share the consequences. My 
father walked (as was his wont) into town just as I had 
finished the first year of my apprenticeship, and I can 
never forget the aspect of that tall, handsome figure 
gazing with astonishment down on his poor, crippled, 
stunted, emaciated offspring. That was the closing 
scene of my apprenticeship. That year's work made 
me the dwarf of a shapely family. Pride, with twelve 
months' manipulation, assisted in half straightening my 



32 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

fivey limbs, so that in time I escaped the finger of scorn 
pointed by my old schoolfellows at my ungainly shape. 
The reader may be informed that the principal 
cause of this distorting influence was (I speak of the 
past) to be found in the mode of carrying the bread to 
the customers, which was in oblong boards bound 
with iron, so dangerous to pedestrians that a fine was 
imposed on any one so laden using the foot sidewalk. 
Several events of importance transpired during 1817. 
The return of the 42d regiment from Waterloo, their 
entrance into the capital of their country after two 
years' detention in England, to be reviewed by the 
Prince Regent, was an ovation to be remembered : the 
exposure of the Regalia of Scotland, which had been 
by consent concealed from the public view since the 
union of the two kingdoms up to this date ; the laying 
of the foundation of the Regent Bridge by Prince 
Leopold ; the building of the new jail on Calton Hill, 
and the death of Princess Charlotte, daughter of George 
IV, and his ill-used Queen Caroline. The death of this 
princess caused a deep and lasting melancholy to the 
English people, by whom she was beloved dearly. She 
was married to Prince Leopold, who became afterward 
King of Belgium and subsequently married a daughter 
of Louis Philippe of France. 



CHAPTER VI. 



" Oh ! wad some power the giftie gie us 
Tae see oursels as ithers see us." 

MY love of home, placed in juxtaposition with my 
restless desire to leave it, would appear to those 
unacquainted with the character of the Scottish people 
to savor of inconsistency. The migratory spirit of the 
Scotch is not altogether an optional matter with the 
individual. There is a sentiment pervading the home 
atmosphere which largely tends to prompt or interfere 
with his initiatory steps on the threshold of life, which 
is more powerful than his own will. A boy can bravely 
stand the buffets of a cold outside world, but to be 
twitted by his schoolmates with being "tied to his 
mither's apron-strings " is more than he can bear. 
During the harvest of 1817 I assisted Mr. Bryson of 
Aberlady, and while there it was discovered that the 
symptoms of a fatal disease were sapping the founda- 
tions of my brother's health, which Dr. Maitland 
declared to be a virulent type of consumption, of which 
he died in November of that year. Notwithstanding 
the death of my brother, an evil which clearly made it 
my duty to stay and assist my parents, I blush to say 
that previous to leaving Aberlady I had engaged to 
work for Andrew Robertson, of Portobello, which en- 
gagement nothing could dissuade me from fulfilling — 
3 33 



34 AUTOBIOGKAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

conduct which I never can think of without pain. My 
father pardoned this hardheartedness, but I cannot 
pardon myself. And now I leave my lovely native 
spot again, of which, in singing in its praise, I have 
been accused of partiality. I have said, and lovingly 
sang in ecstacy, that 

" Atween the Bass and Lammerlaw, 
Coldingham Muir and Prestonshaw, 

Auld Scotia's garden lies; 
In a' that ornaments the ground, 
A lovelier spot can ne'er be found 
Beneath the arching skies." 

In order to prove this, let the reader accompany me 
to an eminence overlooking East Lothian, and see for 
himself whether there be exaggeration in the statement. 
Lammerlaw is the most elevated point of the Lam- 
mermuir range of hills, which runs from the east in 
Berwickshire to join the Lowthers on the west, form- 
ing a fine protecting southern boundary to the rich 
Lothian land lying to the north, between this range 
and the Firth of Forth. Trace the course of that 
little stream, and listen to its self-important clatter 
among the stones in its descent to the bonny braes o' 
Danskin ! And see it now, after meandering round 
the hill foot, and receiving the embraces of the mount- 
ain tributaries. Its channel widens and deepens as it 
laughs in its new born pride, as much as to say, "Grow- 
ing at this rate in my course, I shall be able to drive a 
mill when I come to the place where a mill may be 
wanted." Now it has hidden itself among that splendid 
foliage, it beautifies the scene of Yester, the seat of the 
Marquis of Tweeddale, where the beautiful Lady Mar- 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON. 35 

garet Hay, the present Duchess of Wellington, was 
born. The mills of Gifford are beholden to this bur- 
nie, which was born under your feet, but which now is 
dignified by the name of the river Tyne. Now it ca's 
the 'wauk mill/ and plays aboot the rocks of 
Eagles Cairnie, owned and occupied by Colonel Stuart, 
said to be the only remaining scion of the royal fam- 
ily of that name. He lost both arms at Waterloo. 
Notwithstanding this physical defect, he was the finest 
skater on the Tyne. It was a treat to see this tall, 
straight, armless figure amusing himself on the ice. 
Tyne now ornaments the grounds of Ledington, now 
called Lennox Love, where Gilbert Burns was land 
steward. He lived for many years, and died at that 
delightful spot called Grant's braes, situated on a high 
bank, overlooking the fine Policy of General Houston, of 
Clerkington, on the opposite bank of Tyne. Lennox 
Love, on the east bank, is the property of Lord Blan- 
tyre. We have traced the Tyne from its source in the 
Lammermuir doon to where I first saw and paddled in 
it, where its pranks have ofttimes put the country- 
side in fear ; on one occasion, it rose to an extraordi- 
narily great height, threatening danger to the town, 
which was timely relieved by the stone wall round the 
Policy of Amesfield Park giving way. 

The estates which it waters below Haddington are 
beautiful and historically interesting, which in descrip- 
tion seems to defy exaggeration. Amesfield, the seat 
of Francis Charteris, Lord Elcho ; Stevenston, the seat 
of Sir John Sinclair; Biel, the bonny banks o' Biel, the 
property of the Nisbets ; the estate of Bienston, 
Hailes Castle, the Hepburn property, where Queen 



36 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

Mary staid (I won't say slept), over night on her 
unhappy way to Dunbar Castle, which was the parting 
scene of that ill-fated lady from her native Scotland. 
Just below Hailes is the pretty village of Linton and 
Linton Linn, " where a' the de'ils in hell fell in." 
Here is the model farm of Phantasy, where the cele- 
brated Sir John Rennie, who built the iron bridge 
across the Thames at Southwark and new London 
bridge, was born, and as we approach the confluence of 
the sweet stream with the larger volume of the Firth, 
we point out the wee bit shopie wherein John Rennie 
served his apprenticeship. Nor would it be respectful 
to the Earl of Haddington, to leave the delightful vil- 
lage of Tyningham, without viewing his holly hedges, 
on which he prides himself so much, also his fine estate, 
his noble mansion, and the aspect of his stately grounds. 
As the village belle on her first visit to a city marvels 
at the scant deference paid to her, so the identity of a 
cheering stream is lost in wider waters. Pray do not 
quit your altitude before justice is done to the grand 
panoramic view before you. 

On beauty artists love to dwell, 
To them a landscape brings a spell, 

A bliss denied to ithers, 
Except the poet drinking in 
The tints o' a' that make a scene; 

Nature made them brithers. 

For guid sake assume the quality o' ane o' the 
brithers if ye hae it not, and do not descend the hill 
with an idea that the beauty of East Lothian is con- 
fined to the course of the Tyne, bonny as it is. Look 
east, where your view is lost in the German ocean, but 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON. 37 

do not overlook intervening points. Notice that big lone 
hill, sleeping in the rich valley in the foreground. That 
is Traprainlaw, which is supposed to contain gold 
enough to enrich the county, but which is left by the 
owner in its natural aspect to feed his sheep by its vel- 
vety covering, painting their little hoofs into tints of 
the supposed metallic substance below. In that true 
spirit of Scotch philosophy, he waits the wave of Cal- 
ifornian enterprise to howk and open up his treasure ; 
a thing likely in the near future, for in Lord Hopetoun 
he has a brave prospecting pioneer within three miles 
of him. It is supposed that his Lordship opened up 
the Garleton hills in search of the precious metal, and 
found, instead, a richer mine of iron of the finest qual- 
ity. In the middle distance you have the picturesque 
grounds of Belhaven, and the rugged coast of Dunbar 
with its burgh, and the ruins of its historical castle, 
where Black Agnes defied the Montague, also the man- 
sion and grounds of the Earl of Lauderdale. A little 
to the east lies the battle ground whereon Cromwell 
secured, by the defeat of Leslie, the government of 
Scotland, and blessed by relieving it for some eight 
years of the bungling misgovernment of the Stuarts. 
Still further east, the romantic ravine, spanned by the 
Peasbrig, Coldingham, Eyemouth, and St. Abb's Head. 
To the north, we have a richer view still. The whole 
course of the Tyne, and estates it waters, besides those 
seats of beauty placed beyond its reach, such as Gos- 
ford (Earl of Wemyss), Lufness, Balancecrief (Lord 
Elibank), that of Sir James Sutie, and Balfour of 
Whitingham ; Stuart, of Alderston ; Sir Hugh Dal- 
rymple, North Berwick, and many others all spread out 



38 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

like a richly variegated carpet fringed on the north by 
that noble estuary the Firth of Forth, on a promon- 
tory, on which stand the ruins of Tantallon Castle, the 
ancient seat of the Douglass, which Marmion immor- 
talized. Two miles out in the Firth from this point is 
the Bass Rock, the last stronghold of the Stuarts ; some 
fifteen miles further out the island of May. The west- 
ern view embraces the estate of Fletcher, of Saltoun 
Hall, the bonny braes o' Branxholm, the estates of 
Seaton, of Caddell of Cockenzie, of Ormiston, and 
others, up to the boundary line west of Preston Grange, 
taking in the continued line of thriving villages along 
the coast, make up a landscape which, when once seen, 
never can be forgotten. From Gullen on the east, to 
Prestonpans on the west, presents one of the most 
thriving scenes of industry to be found anywhere. I 
cannot bear to leave East Lothian without a parting 
word on the unfortunate Mary, whose treatment at the 
Court of Elizabeth forms one of the most heartless 
tragedies on record. 

Behold the lovely Mary, Scotland's queen ! 
In ectasy of grief, on Hepburn Lien 
That shelter seek, within Haile's castle towers, 
Denied her by the legislative powers. 

Thence, evil tidings of her adverse war, 
In poignant anguish, drove her to Dunbar, 
Without a friend to counsel or protect 
Her sacred person from the fearful wreck. 

Her self-reliance fails. She now must yield, 
And place herself behind a Southern shield. 
Nor had the suppliant Mary long to wait — 
The white-horse rider 's ready at the gate. 



OF DAVID JOHNSTOST. 39 

Willing help th' imperious Tudor gave, 
Precursing durance and a bloody grave. 
To England's standing on the scroll of fame, 
The death of Mary brings the blush of shame! 

The reader will excuse an anecdote on taking leave 
of the Tyne. On crossing from school one sunny day, 
over the Nungate brig, as was my wont, to see the bon- 
nie troots gamboling in the clear stream, I clambered to 
the cape-stane, and there I saw an unco sight — a bairn 
about four years of age, lying on its back, in its last 
efforts to retain the precious spark, at the bottom of the 
river. I ran, as prompted, to the rescue, and succeeded 
in restoring the child to the embrace of the anxious 
parents. This same child was doomed, in one short half 
year, to lose its life by violence. On the morning of a 
winter day, the poor little fellow, descending the inclined 
plane leading from the bridge, slipped on the ice, and 
fell in front of one of the wheels of a laden cart, and 
was killed on the spot. 



CHAPTER VII. 



" The sea,! the sea ! the open sea I 
I am where I would ever be, 
With its blue above and its blue below." 

DURING the pleasant year I spent with Mr. Ro- 
bertson, in the lively village of Portobello, the 
country was horror-stricken by the expose of the ghoul- 
ish traffic of murdering innocent persons to supply food 
for the dissecting scalpel, in which Burke and Hare 
played prominent parts in Edinburgh, the scene of 
Burke's expiation on the scaffold for the crime, while 
Hare, turning King's evidence, escaped the gallows, to 
suffer a living death in Canada. 

The tie of consanguinity is not easily broken in 
Scotland. A cousin, with that people, must be a good 
many times removed before he can be allowed to slide 
into the ocean which is considered common to human- 
ity. Taking a few days of recreation at home, I soon 
found employment with Alexander Glen, Castle street, 
Edinburgh, a cousin o' my father's o' the German type. 
There's no knowing how far the elastic tie was stretched 
— it was still unbroken ; and it was only necessary to 
mention the name of John Johnston to find a place in 
his thriving business. Mr. Glen's business lay among 
the 61ite of the New Town, among whom was Sir Wal- 
ter Scott, whose mansion was on the north section of 

40 



AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES. 41 

the same street, at which it became my duty to call 
daily, to supply his family with the staff of life. On 
one occasion I essayed (as was usual) to approach the 
larder for the purpose of relieving myself of my burthen 
of six quartern loaves, at a time when all the servants 
were engaged up stairs. Sir Walter's favorite hound, 
Maida, disputed my approach, and, on attempting to 
elude his vigilance, he placed my helpless arm between 
his potent jaws, and there held me in durance till the 
cook made her appearance and indulged in a hearty 
laugh at my expense, and then Maida took his matted 
place on the landing of the kitchen stairs, his sentry- 
box when on guard. The charm of that classic precinct 
passed away at the demise of that genial soul, whose 
daily steps, in wonted exercise, made sacred the very 
stones on which he trod, and which is now adorned by 
the Gothic taste of Kemp, in that matchless monu- 
ment in memory of the immortal Scott. 

In the meantime my half-brother, Alexander, after 
many years' service in the Royal artillery, had distin- 
guished himself at the taking of the island of Ceylon 
from the Dutch. While as flag sergeant, being en- 
gaged in special service, the command of the detach- 
ment fell to him by the fall in battle of the commis- 
sioned officers intrusted with the expedition, the object 
of which, requiring some strategic delicacy, was attained 
to the satisfaction of the officer in command, a report 
of which was, by his orders, transmitted to the com- 
mander-in-chief, His Grace the Duke of Wellington, 
who was pleased to offer Alexander, as a mark of his 
approval, his choice of a commission in the Royal 
artillery, or a barrack sergeantcy, or a master gunner- 



42 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL KEMIKISCEKCES 

ship in any one of our home strongholds. Not relishing 
the atmosphere of an officer's mess to one who has 
risen from the ranks, he had the good sense to choose 
the lesser of the twin favors. The Iron Duke at that 
time held the office of master-gunner of the ordnance. 
The master-gunnership of Leith fort was the first fruits of 
the Duke's favors, and this was rendered the more agree- 
able by the residence in that fort of his brother-in-law, 
David Davidson, and his delightful family. This fort 
is advantageously situated on the rising ground west of 
North Leith, near the fishing village of Newhaven, com- 
manding a fine extensive view of the busy Firth, the 
Isle of Inchkeith and the Kingdom o' Fife. H. M. 
S. Ramilies, eighty-four guns, then guarded the com- 
merce of the northern capital, the flitting visits to and 
from Stirling of the first of the forthcoming numerous 
family of steamers which had the courage to risk a 
taste of the stormy Firth, added another subject of in- 
terest. Here, in a visit of three weeks at this bewitch- 
ing spot, my unconquerable passion for the sea was 
engendered, a passion which nothing short of sea-sick- 
ness could subdue. 

After a lapse of a few years from this visit, while 
working with Mr. Glen, I engaged to work with a Mr. 
Wright, of the Coalhill, Leith, for no other reason than 
to be near the shipping. This step I soon regretted, 
not only on account of the good feeling existing be- 
tween Mr. Glen and myself, but the influence of dis- 
paragement to the coarse nature of Mr. W. as com- 
pared to Mr. Glen. 

The only redeeming feature of the change was the 
companionship of my fellow-workman, David Bonner 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON. 43 

who, as far as one can judge for themselves, was the 
very counterpart of the subscriber. He had the advan- 
tage of age (two years), of education, and in wild vaga- 
ries. It required about two weeks to combine our aerial 
architectural capacities so as to enable us to launch out 
in the business of castle building. Each held the other 
in the highest estimation for practical wisdom, and 
whatsoever was suggested by the one was clinched by 
the other as the one thing needful. In the course of 
our cogitations we at length resolved to see the world ; 
that the sea being the highway of nations, we should 
take that road ; that inasmuch as it was impossible to 
get shipped in Leith, we should start for Newcastle-on- 
Tyne for that purpose ; that it would be more agreeable 
to go the one hundred miles by water than by land ; 
that a boat lying keel uppermost at Hillesfield may be 
sold for ten shillings ; that we buy said boat and stick 
a pole in her to which we can fasten a biscuit bag for a 
sail. Our prospective voyage was designed to be one 
of pleasure. Old Boreas was to put on his best behav- 
ior. We were to be very careful never to sail so far 
from the land that we could not, if necessity required 
k, just pull our bit boatie ashore and take our snooze 
on dry land, and await the morning breeze from the 
north to help us on our journey. We gave up our situ- 
ations with Mr. Wright, and found our purchase money 
for the boat entirely lost, inasmuch as it proved beyond 
our strength to move her, and got laughed to scorn on 
asking assistance from practical men. "Why," they 
said, " that old hulk has been so long a stranger to salt 
water that on an attempt to re-launch her she would 
fall to pieces." Still so impatient were we for the sea 



44 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

that we hired a boat for our experimental trip to the 
island of Inchkeith. Weather fine and tide serving, 
the passage to the island was delightful, and to add to 
our pleasure while on the island a splendid frigate 
passed so close to us as to enable us to perceive every 
movement of the busy crew upon her deck. Up to 
that period in my life I had never witnessed anything 
so bewitchingly fascinating as that moving picture. 
My wild, unthinking brain and heart followed in her 
wake. And now the wind, freshening and veering to 
the southwest, together with the adverse tide, admon- 
ished us to the oar. The closing scene of that voyage 
was made to stand in bitter contrast with that of the 
early day. Three hours* hard pulling began to convince 
us that wind and tide ahead were too much for our un- 
skillful seamanship, and might lead to our undoing. 
The schemes of the voyage to Newcastle were borne by 
that breeze to the German ocean, never more to be 
dreamed of again. Our soft, unsailor-like hands became 
crowded with egg-like blisters, and still a hard mile to 
row, and the clouds of night rapidly descending. At 
dusk we reached the harbor and found the captain in a 
surly mood, pacing the deck of his little Thurso sloop, 
from whom we hired the boat. He met us with a 
vocabulary which I have since learned presented itself 
in the shape of much approved maritime oaths. I con- 
fess to having understood one of his expressions when 
he sputtered out in Scandinavian idiom : " I hope to go 

to somewhere if I ever lend my boat to d d 

land lubbers again. " Now this was simply an outburst 
of anger brewed an hour ago in the supposition that 
his yawl had gone to the locker of Davy Jones. No 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON". 45 

matter what had become o' the two idiots who tempted 
him with their halfcrown for a bit sail in the Firth. 
He thought, in his broad Christian charity, that as far 
as the boys were concerned they might as well be out 
of the way. 

There are actions during the spring-time of life 
which will shrink from the scrutiny of one's riper years. 
Exemption from this test, I believe, is confined to the 
few. Still there may be such whose blunders figure as 
an exception to the rule of an otherwise fairly spent 
morning of life. In my own retrospect I find, alas ! an 
entire reversal in the order of things. I am humiliated 
to find blundering unmistakably the rule and wise 
action the exception. Could there be a better speci- 
men found than the present to show to what folly 
youth can descend when left untrammeled? Behold 
two fellows, respectively 17 and 15 years old, brooding 
over their sunk wealth in the shape of (not an ele- 
phant, but) a cast-off yawl as inert as the Bass Rock 
to their appliances within reach. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



"Of all the passions that possess mankind 
The love of novelty rules most the mind; 
In search of this from realm to realm we roam, 
Our fleets come fraught with every folly home." 

NOTHING daunted, we started on our journey in 
rainy weather. Our wealth consisted of nine 
shillings sterling and a bundle of clothing each, which, 
although a little heavy at starting, we found by the 
time we had reached North Shields, we had none too 
much. For obvious reasons we took the lower road, 
leaving Haddington considerably to the south. In an 
increasing storm of wind and rain we found shelter in a 
miserable lodging-house in the town of North Berwick, 
for which we paid fourpence each. After a vain 
attempt to dry ourselves at the meager fire, we tumbled 
into our bed-bunk, and slept soundly on a tick filled 
with chaff. On the following morning we found the 
storm had increased to a hurricane and all the town in 
an uproar, with cries of " A wreck, a wreck ! A ship 
is on the rocks, make haste to save." 

Our frugal meal of bread and milk we left 
untouched and hastened to the harbor, which we 
reached just in time to see, in the midst of the howling 
storm, a dismasted brig in a most fearful condition. 
The hands seemed almost helplessly benumbed. The 

46 



AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES. 47 

rigging, which they had failed to cut adrift, entangled 
the deck, so as to impede the progress of the work 
necessary to their salvation. But the master knew his 
craft and was well acquainted with the dangerous 
nature of the coast, and by dint of skill and straining 
exertion, kept clear of the rocks, to find a haven of 
safety. Moodily we retraced our steps to our four- 
penny hotel, nor was the silence broken until our frugal 
fast-breaking meal was nearly discussed, when the 
elder of the two Dauvids, returning to his normal con- 
dition, opened his mouth and said, " Aye, man, 
Dauvid, d'ye ken what I was thinking aboot?" "Na," 
said the younger sage, " I dinnaken what ye was think- 
ing aboot, but I ken what I was thinking aboot. " 
" Man," said the elder, " I was just thinking what a 
figure obr ship Eliza (the name we had given our Hilles- 
field craft) would have cut in siccan a storm as this ; 
tell me your thoughts. " I said that the scene at the 
harbor had bewildered my thoughts. Had we suc- 
ceeded in launching the Eliza this very storm would 
have settled our career on this earth. As it is, I think 
we ought to look upon this as a Providential warning 
for the future. 

Dauvid seemed hardly prepared for the depth of 
this philosophy, coming from one who had up to this 
period fallen so readily into all his wild vagaries, and 
was evidently touched. But our walk had made keen 
our appetites. Wet as we were, our twa penny baps 
frae Provost Brodie's, and twa pence worth of sweet 
milk, was freely and thankfully discussed, and we 
shouldered our bundles for Dunbar. The storm had 
moderated, but still it rained, and heavy roads impeded 



48 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

our progress, so that we arrived late and had to pay 
one shilling for our bed, thereby augmenting the 
monetary uneasiness which was daily fastening on our 
troubled spirits. Still the lions of Dunbar were not 
overlooked : the harbor, the gift of Cromwell, and 
the castle which, in the absence of her husband, Black 
Agnes defended against Montague. This same Dun- 
bar is famous in history. Here, it may be said, the 
keys of Scotland fell into the hands of the victorious 
Cromwell by the defeat of Leslie. Here Mary took 
her farewell of power and Scotland, and here Sir John 
Cope landed with his army from the north to oppose 
the Chevalier, but failed to succeed. On our way to 
Berwick-on-Tweed we pass the house from the window 
of which Cromwell sat watching the movements of his 
adversary. Leslie had taken up a position which chal- 
lenged the admiration of Cromwell, who deemed it 
unassailable. The flower of the Scottish nobility were 
under Leslie. They became impatient of control and 
inactivity. Leslie, in an evil hour, yielded to their 
importunities, which Cromwell perceiving, exclaimed in 
his characteristic vocabulary, " The Lord hath delivered 
them into our hands. Trust in the Lord and keep 
your powder dry." There is a combination of circum- 
stances that go to retard one's progress as a successful 
pedestrian ; a big bundle, heavy roads, a gloomy 
atmosphere, an empty stomach, a light purse, a bad 
errand, and a seared conscience ; and this compound 
was the only property we possessed on this earth. 
This was no wager-provoking trot. A good walker 
might make Berwick from Dunbar easily, but burdened 
as we were we had to avail ourselves of the hospitality 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON. 49 

of a kind-hearted old farmer, who allowed us to sleep 
in his barn on oat straw, for which privilege we were 
very grateful, but took the road too early to proffer 
our thanks. At an early hour in the afternoon of our 
fourth day's tramp we arrived at the town of Berwick, 
which, in the language of St. Stephens, is distinguished 
by the appellation of " our town of Berwick-upon- 
Tweed/' In ancient times this town was the theater 
of many a bloody fight, where Wallace figured to 
advantage. Its aspect in peace is beautiful, its history 
is fraught with historic lore. Here is the conflux of 
the classic Tweed with the German ocean, the river 
being spanned by a magnificent bridge. Our tour in 
Northumberland will be theme enough for another 
chapter. Beloved Scotland, farewell. 
4 



CHAPTER IX. 



Oh! bonnie Tweed, so glorious in thy sheen, 
Of all the northern rivers thou 'rt the queen. 
In ages yet to come thy crystal tide, 
To beautify will flow, nor to divide. 

• Nor will your hills and gently sloping braes 
Lack those to sing in anthems to thy praise; 
Each, shore with shore, in harmony combine, 
Eschewing scenes that marked a darker time. 

May ne'er again high-handed war prevail 
To mar the beauty of thy fruitful vale. 
Your classic stream evokes the sacred nine, 
To, bless your sons with happiness divine. 

LIKE all good mercantile firms we paused to take 
/ stock. We chose the middle arch of Berwick 
bridge whereon to overhaul our exchequer, and found 
ourselves in possession of one shilling and ninepence 
wherewith to do the hardest part of our journey, with- 
out any budget to fall back on. We were now in 
England, and though the Northumbrian is famed for 
hospitality, we began to feel lonely and dispirited, and 
a keen sense of our folly and wickedness took posses- 
sion of our souls. We knelt in the mud, and prayed to 
be forgiven of the giver of every good gift. How could 
we use such good, kind parents as we both had so 
heartlessly cruel ? But the die was cast. The twin 

50 



AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES. 51 

necessities were upon us. Proceed and suffer, or return 
to disgrace. By the time we reached Alnwick our 
last penny had found its way into unknown coffers, so 
that in the future the distension of our stomachs had 
to depend upon corresponding shrinkage of our ward- 
robe. The sale of a shirt supplied the wants of Sunday, 
which we decently spent in the ancient town of 
Alnwick, the noble and princely seat of Percy, Duke of 
Northumberland. Recuperated, both in mind and body, 
and weather improving, the old sea-mania returned 
with ten-fold force. It would never do for us to keep 
the straight road through Morpeth to North Shields. 
The thought of walking all that distance without one 
glance at our darling element was preposterous. We 
directed our steps eastward to the coast. The good and 
evil resulting from this idiotic whim, were first, viewing 
the beautiful country lying between Alnwick and the 
barren waste which for many miles lines the North- 
umbrian shore; the chance of viewing the Coquet 
Island and Warkworth Castle, the most ancient strong- 
hold of the Percys in the early Plantagenet and Tudor 
times, and the endurance of the pangs of an empty 
stomach for a longer period than we had hitherto ex- 
perienced. Our chosen path led through a sandy 
rabbit warren, destitute of the semblance of humanity. 
About mid-day we spied a house, a mile off in the 
interior, to which hunger prompted us to approach 
and make known to the lady of the house our hapless 
condition. We offered her a shirt for eighteen pence, 
half the price in bread and milk. " Na, lads, I dunna 
want your shirt, but thou'lt get some bread and milk 
and welcome, " was her kind reply, and suiting the 



52 AUTOBIOGKAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

action to the word, placed before our ravenous vision a 
large wooden platter, heaped with wheaten and oaten 
bread, and abundance of milk, which we devoured with 
such a gusto as must have astonished the kind-hearted 
Samaritan. With our blessing and many thanks for 
her hospitable entertainment, we rose and departed, 
with the blush of shame mantling on our cheek at the 
greedy-like manner in which we cleaned out her boun- 
tiful supply. About dusk we reached the harbor of 
Blythe, and the town being on the south bank of the 
river, how to get across became a question of some 
moment. Bridge there was none, and the fare per 
head by boat, one penny. Our pennies had all de- 
parted to be the slaves of others. We offered a pair 
of good braces to row us over the ferry. The hoary- 
headed Charon laughed us to scorn. Nothing but the 
hard cash for him. My companion, on exposing the 
braces he wore, was reminded that he had long worn 
as brace buttons four farthings, perforated to receive 
the thread. " I will take these four farthings/' said the 
boatman, " and keep them in remembrance of the pov- 
erty-stricken Scotch, and row you over the ferry." The 
bargain struck, off came the farthings, pocketing the 
affront, and we were in due time safely landed on the 
southern shore of the river. Being a fair day the town 
was crowded with people from the surrounding country, 
and all the beds bespoken. However, a bed was by a 
kind lady improvised on the floor of her clean little 
cottage, and on the following morning with a dimin- 
ished bundle, we set out in rain to finish our tedious 
journey in quest of slavery on the trackless deep. We 
arrived at the conflux of the teeming, busy Tyne with 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON. 53 

the German ocean. Here, on a high hill, stands the 
celebrated Tynemouth Castle, from the beautiful 
esplanade, of which you have a commanding view of 
one of the richest scenes in England. The thriving 
towns of North and South Shields, the river, covered 
with ships and keels employed in coal-carrying to all 
parts of the known world, together with the coast view 
as far south as Flamborough Head, embracing Sunder- 
land, Whitby, Scarborough and other busy marts of 
trade — a panorama well worth a week's march to see. 
Here we received a lesson in economy which has 
proved valuable to me through life. In the middle of 
the road lay a lump of good bread, covered with mud, 
and nearly saturated with rain, which we carefully 
cleansed and nicely divided, and dropped it into our 
respective internal membranes, which were writhing to 
be employed. From that day to this I am pained to 
see the blessing of bread wasted. This morsel was like 
manna from heaven, sweetened by the need. Previous 
to descending the hill we sat down to take stock of our 
diminishing store of worldly goods, and soon perceived 
that my Sunday trousers were destined to depart from 
their wonted usefulness to meet a more urgent exi- 
gency. The difference between buying and selling I 
had become pretty familiar with, but parting with that 
garment for one shilling and sixpence, which had cost 
seven shillings, and was very little the worse for wear, 
I confess gave me a heavy pang. But go they must, 
and they went. The price of them sufficed to carry us 
over the first night in North Shields. It will be seen 
by this humble narrative that all through this wild, 
reckless breach of propriety our consequent self-inflicted 



54 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES. 

condition was wonderfully relieved by acts of kindness 
on the part of others, making more poignant the sense 
of shame for our too palpable misconduct. My nether 
garment disposed of, and one-third of the proceeds 
thereof consumed, we had picked up another boy 
who was worse off than ourselves. He had neither 
money nor clothes, so he came under the shadow of 
our wing and shared with us all the benefits of the firm, 
because he was of the same name as myself (at least he 
said so) and on the same scapegrace errand. (Misery 
loves company.) Providence now directed our steps to 
the door of one of the most angelic women on this 
globe. It required but one glance of Mrs. Cookson to 
read the character of the three scamps who stood on 
her threshold in quest of shelter for this drizzly night. 
" Only on one condition can I take you into my house. 
Sit down and write each to your mother," which we 
did. 



CHAPTER X. 



The acme of weakness is an accusing conscience. 

THE tongue lashing, to which we patiently sub- 
mitted, was severe but true, and I hope use- 
ful. She dwelt on the sin of such cruelty, and then 
and there made us sit down and write home (she would 
pay the mail) and acknowledge our faults, making this 
step the condition of her receiving us into her cottage 
to lodge. This lady on the following day made a 
fruitless endeavor to dissuade us from a seafaring life, 
and well she might ; for out of a family of six, four 
sons and two daughters, that insatiable element had 
swallowed up two, and those her first-born boys. Her 
younger boys were also bound apprentices to the sea, 
which to this loving soul proved a fruitful source of 
grievous anxiety, that they likewise would in all probabil- 
ity be buried in the deep. Such, indeed, is the effect of 
the fascination held out by the rollicking Jack Tar on 
the youth of the Northumberland coast, and the de- 
mands made upon it, that it fully accounts for the 
disparity of the number of males as compared with 
that of females, there appearing in the census of. 
that period five to one in favor of the latter. But 
it must be borne in mind that this is the principal 
nursery of the British navy, and where will you find 

55 



56 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

such sailors? Here you have the bone and muscle 
provoked into play by an ingenious device in practice 
on this coast. Most seamen are paid by the month. 
Here they are paid by the voyage. Pride and profit 
are great incentives to speed. By this mode, the inter- 
est of employer and employe are alike promoted, and 
the government reaps the principal advantage. To 
return to our story : I am ashamed to say the unan- 
swerable eloquence of that estimable lady was lost 
upon us, and seeing our resolution unshaken, she 
determined to exercise her disinterested guardianship 
by placing us under the guidance of a worthy man. 
Emanuel Walmsley was the owner of four vessels, all 
hailing from North Shields, and employed in carrying 
coal to London and elsewhere, in one of which her two 
sons were apprenticed. Thither she carried us, and 
were she our mother an introduction could not have 
been couched in more tender language. Oh ! the 
priceless value of motherly love! The remembrance 
of that woman's disinterested kindness has proved a 
balm to my mind for three-score years, and during the 
season of my subsequent prosperity I resolved to visit 
and tangibly thank her for past kindness, but on arriv- 
ing at Bowmaker's bank, North Shields, found the old 
cottage cold and desolate, the family dispersed, and the 
venerable Samaritan returned to dust just one week. 
With a heavy heart I returned to London, regretting 
the baneful effect of a culpable procrastination. Mr. 
.Walmsley, a gentleman of three-score years, atten- 
tively listened to the appeal of Mrs. Cookson, and 
kindly complied with that lady's request to take us 
three boys into his employment as apprentices, and 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON. 57 

arranged with her to board us while his ships were at 
sea. The old Barbara, more commonly called the old 
Meal Barrel, was due in ten days, and two of the boys 
should ship in her, which two should be settled between 
themselves. As for the third boy, she could not vouch 
for him as being truthful. " In the meantime, send them 
down to my marine warehouse, where we'll teach them 
to be half sailors before they get to sea." This kind 
reception and arrangement proved satisfactory to all 
parties concerned. Even the good old lady seemed 
half reconciled to the prospects of her adopted charges, 
and we, the pair of scapegraces, were overjoyed at our 
success. The addition to our number failed to enhance 
our respectability. He lied regarding his name. Still, 
he was employed. Twelve days' experience in the good 
man's marine store, with the exception of the usual 
bantering the poor Scotchmen have to stand when 
thrown into contact with a low class of English, was 
mainly comfortable, each day's petty annoyances being 
more than compensated by the happy evenings spent 
in the bosom of Mrs. Cookson's family. I may here 
remark that young as I was I did marvel at the sense- 
less jargon leveled at us on the part of the foreman, 
who in other respects seemed intelligent, but who 
uttered his broken English as if the most prickly part of 
a guid auld Scotch thistle were stuck in his throat, ignor- 
ing the use of the forceful rattling "r" in the noble 
English language, and who pronounced the lower lights 
of his own harbor "the law leets." But the man was. 
intoxicated with authority. He briefly lorded it over 
seven of his fellows, and stands excused. Now comes 
a very painful scene in the drama. The two Davies had 



58 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

been nearly a year boon companions, and had together 
tasted of life's sweetness, and some of its bitters. The 
hour approached that they must part. The old Bar- 
bara, Captain Patterson, has thrown her ports open to 
receive another load of black diamonds for London. 
One of the Davies must forthwith report on board to 
undergo the usual trial trip previous to binding. It 
fell to my lot to become cabin boy to one of the most 
tyrannical of men. Painful it was to part from the 
Cookson family, but the pain was softened in the pros- 
pect of seeing them on my return. Not so in parting 
with the sonsy, slow-going, taciturn, kind-hearted David 
Bonner, whom it never has been my good fortune to 
see since ; but I was subsequently informed that he 
shipped on board the Harmony. David Pierce, for that 
was the third's real name, shipped with me on board 
the Barbara, and our respective vessels keeping apart 
in their traffic deprived us of the chance of meeting. 
From the comparatively cleanly occupation of teazing 
oakum, etc., in the store, to the hold of the Meal Barrel, 
trimming coal, was no very fascinating change, but pas- 
sive obedience is in the sailor, as in the soldier, an im- 
portant attribute. To-day I am in the hold ; to-morrow 
on the gallant mast. Report says there is a four foot 
sea on Tynemouth bar and expected to increase. Our 
hatches were battened and decks half washed, when 
the order was given to cast off lines and be off to sea. 
My first duty as a seaman was to assist to unfurl the 
foretopgallant sail. Getting safely aloft, and in the 
act of obeying instructions, I was seized with all the 
symptoms of an aggravated form of seasickness, which 
totally unfitted me for the duties devolving upon me, 



OF DAYID JOHNSTON". 59 

and before I could reach the shrouds was compelled in 
my nausea, amidst the heartless jeers of my shipmates, 
to cast up my accounts down upon the deck below. 
Oh, the humiliating effect of that event! Vain must 
be the attempt to describe my feelings. I could neither 
eat nor sleep, consequently got daily worse and less 
useful. Hitherto, my good health and buoyancy of 
spirits had gained friends in the most trying circum- 
stances. Now I found that sickness and hopeless dis- 
appointment met with naught else but kicks, cuffs and 
sneers from an unfeeling crew. In the course of a few 
days, with a strong tide and southerly wind against us, 
we cast anchor in Yarmouth Roads. While lying 
there, the carpenter, a coarse fellow, taking umbrage at 
me for daring to ask him to repeat something which I 
failed to understand, struck me a blow on the side of 
my head, carrying my hat overboard, which I thought- 
lessly followed, being something of a swimmer. Placing 
the hat where it belonged, on my head, I essayed to 
reach the ship, but was suddenly struck with a sense of 
danger on finding myself so far astern of her as to make 
it appear impossible ever to reach her in my present 
weakness against so strong a current, but hope revived 
when I perceived the bustle on deck getting the boat 
out to save the drowning boy. Nearly exhausted when 
picked up nearly a mile astern, I was glad to see the 
carpenter foremost in his efforts to save. Of course, 
the rope's end, the universal antidote for false steps on 
the part of unthinking youth on board ship, had to be 
applied. To allow my poor emaciated frame to escape 
the ordeal would, in the eyes of Patterson, amount to 
an unpardonable breach of discipline. This brutish 



60 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

scoundrel was a good seaman, and was known to make 
in the slowest-sailing craft in the Northumbrian 
coast trade the quickest runs. My testimony in this 
case may be partial, and therefore deemed worth- 
less, but I could not help thinking while under 
the chastisement that the proverbial caution, "To 
spare the rope's end would spoil the sailor," was 
somewhat overstrained. Be that as it may, from that 
moment I ceased to have any regard for the man. Yet, 
strange to say, my life on board the Barbara was from 
that hour greatly improved. I became unwittingly the 
hero of the crew, whose gibes and jeers were turned to 
loving kindness, and just in proportion to the heart 
tide flowing in on the poor sick stranger did it ebb from 
Captain Patterson. They all saw my earnest desire to 
become a sailor, and lamented with me the cruel sick- 
ness standing in the way, and had I swallowed half the 
nostrums proffered to kill it, and exploded in the trial, 
I am sure that the crack would never have been laid to 
the charge of spontaneity. 

Even the carpenter manifested an anxiety in my be- 
half, and declared that to cure seasickness there was 
nothing equal to hot dough soused in treacle. The 
few days spent in the Pool enabled me to recuperate a 
little, but the north run, with a light ship and a heavy 
sea, soon brought me back to a condition more deplor- 
able than ever. I was so emaciated on my return to 
Shields that my kind friends had to look twice to rec- 
ognize me. The kind commiseration I received would 
require an abler pen than mine to describe. Even Mr. 
Walmsley expressed a hope that the second trip would 
prove more conducive to my comfort, and while he 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON. 61 

chid me for my rashness in leaping overboard in a tide 
running three and a half knots, after a two and six- 
penny hat, he did not fail to censure the captain for 
his severity. Thus fortified, I prepared to encounter 
the second ordeal. On bidding good-by at home, I 
was agreeably surprised at the manifestation of feeling 
on the part of a sweet girl of sixteen years. She had, 
during the few days in port, prepared a charm against 
the disease to which I appeared to be so prone. This 
charm consisted of a neat silken bag, heart form, con- 
taining odoriferous material, of which the smell of cam- 
phor unfortunately predominated. This had to be 
placed with a silk ribbon around the neck by the charm- 
er's own hands, which I felt was a most agreeable cer- 
emony, although the remedy proved entirely futile, and 
added to the list of my antipathies, which the smell of 
camphor proves to be up to the present time. 

Of affairs of the heart one labors under a disadvan- 
tage in speaking in the first person. Thou canst say 
with some degree of impunity, " He fell in love," but 
who ever dared say, " I fell in love," without subjecting 
himself to the ridicule of hisfellow-susceptibles? This 
being a tale o' truth, what can I do but confess? 

To the cavilers at my inexperienced weakness for 
that Northumbrian beauty, her heart teeming with 
the milk of human kindness, and the bloom of health 
upon her cheek, I would ask my dear reader, Did you 
ever have the good fortune to be so favored ? If not, 
in sorrow subdue your risibility and try thinking. 

The remainder of my time in the old Meal Barrel 
will form the subject of another chapter, together with 
a little experience in London. 



62 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES. 

I confess now to have had an intensified motive to 
follow at that period a seafaring life. Not only on 
account of the kind attentions of that young maiden, 
but the delicate and disinterested kindness of her 
mother and every member of the family. Indeed, I 
seemed to grow in the good graces of that delightful 
family until I became as one of its members. Little 
did I dream of the ordeal awaiting me in London. It 
is well we know not what a day may bring forth. 



CHAPTER XI. 



"Man's inhumanity to man, 
Makes countless thousands mourn." 

— Burns, 

UNDER improved auspices I entered on my sec- 
ond voyage, and soon discovered that my old 
enemy was not to be cheated out of its victim. Calm 
weather, with a heavy ground swell, gave rise to a mo- 
tion in the vessel that intensified the disease, and 
deeming it also aggravated by the obnoxious smell of 
camphor, I had to lay the charm aside until we re- 
turned to Shields, when, in respect to the feelings of 
the charmer, the charm should resume its intended 
location. During this voyage I became reluctantly 
convinced that nature had not cut me out for a sailor. 
I became as much disgusted with my uselessness as 
with the cruel disease that caused it, and in that frame 
of mind resolved that in the event of another voyage 
failing to improve my condition, I would try some 
other course for a living. On arriving at Shields I 
found Mr. Walmsley, notwithstanding the exaggerated 
report of Patterson, still desirous of keeping me in his 
service. Mrs. Cookson approved of my determination. 
Jane seemed somewhat down in the mouth, lamented 
the failure of her charm, and hoped if I did quit the 
sea I would do so at this end and not at the Lon- 

63 



64 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

don end, where there is so much wickedness. I could 
go back to my own business as well at the one place as 
the other. But my destiny led Londonward, and there 
I left the old Barbara on my third trip, and threw my- 
self once more on the heartless world, with threepence 
in my pocket, which the carpenter gave me when he 
rowed me ashore, while the captain was up town, say- 
ing it was all the cash he had by him or he would 
have given me more (Jesus was the son of a carpenter), 
and I believe him. He had hurried me ashore to es- 
cape a punishment as certain as that the sun gives heat. 
A young fellow-apprentice, who, unlike myself, gave 
evidence of becoming a good seaman, had offended his 
high mightiness, and had committed the unpardonable 
offense of making an effort to escape the enraged fool 
while in a paroxysm of anger, and was therefore felled 
to the deck by a hand-spike in the hands of the verita- 
ble Captain Patterson, of the Barbara, of North 
Shields, formerly boatswain's mate of a man-of-war in 
good King Geordie's reign. At the sight of this wan- 
ton brutality I imprudently, yet voluntarily, gave utter- 
ance to an audible murmur, without any articulation, at 
which he turned his fierce fiendish eyes on me, and said, 
" I will attend to your case when I return on board. " 
Taking the hint, I imparted my secret intention of 
leaving the ship to the carpenter, who suggested imme- 
diate action as above, and left the impotent creature 
to find a new cabin-boy, and thereby augment the num- 
ber of his legion of haters. Now I am in the great 
metropolis of the world, a stranger in a strange land, 
where, after discussing my two-penny breakfast, I had 
one penny left still, in the event of absolute starvation 



OF DAVID JOHtfSTOK. 65 

driving me to the necessity of applying for succor to 
one of whom a word of mention must now again be 
made, — my half brother Alexander, whom we recognized 
as a good soldier, and whom we left in the enjoyment 
of a comfortable sinecure in Leith Fort, troubled with 
a restless wife, and while the Iron Duke remained, 
Master-General of the Ordnance. It was only to ask a 
change more congenial to her caprice to obtain it. She 
was too near the sea at Leith, in Edinburgh Castle too 
high, in Calshot Castle, Hampshire, too low, in Yar- 
mouth Castle, Isle of Wight, too lonely, in Seaforth, 
ditto. Now they are vending Barclay and Perkins* 
Entire, near Wellclose Square, E., London. Under the 
impression of a dreaded correspondence with home, 
awakening in my guilty conscience an awful sense of 
my foolish conduct, I resolved to hold out. It took 
six days to conquer my aversion to an interview with 
that family, passing their door in a starving condition 
every day. At length my brother, having noticed a 
poor, emaciated sailor boy once or twice strolling by, 
resolved to arrest the attention of the same, should he 
again make his appearance, and sure enough, out he 
came, with the dreaded interrogatory, followed by a 
good meal and a much-needed clean shirt. The 
reader will readily perceive how these would be appre- 
ciated when I inform him that my food for four days 
consisted of the maggoty remains of the bread locker 
of a West Indiaman, which I had earned by assisting 
the rigger employed to dismantle her, and my bed was 
among the weeds in a neglected corner of the West 
India docks. After the largest dose of humble pie 
that ever fell to my share to swallow, my future was 
5 



66 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

promptly settled in the most approved military fashion. 
Home letters, like bullets, were mercilessly leveled at 
my devoted head. The luxury of one night of bed re- 
pose was receding rapidly from view. Said my brother : 
" Captain Christie, of the Leith smack Trusty, now at 
Downing's wharf, sails for Leith by the morning's tide ; 
so to secure your passage you must get on board to- 
night. The captain, a friend of mine, will take you 
to Leith, and you can walk to Haddington the next 
day." To consult me in cutting and drying these 
trifles would fail to comport with the dignity of the 
court. Some are slow to discover the mettle of those 
with whom they are dealing. In this case I ventured 
to inform the supreme judges that London was my 
destined field of future action (which in after years was 
amply proven); that during these six days of untold 
misery I had not failed to endeavor to obtain employ- 
ment, and even dared to hint that all that was needed 
were a few articles of decent clothing. But no ; the fiat 
had gone forth. Nothing left but to obey. My obedi- 
ence was more seeming than real. I wished them good- 
by and went on board the Trusty, not by any means, 
as they thought, to avail myself of a passage home, but 
simply to take advantage of the food and shelter which 
a night on board might furnish. After a generous 
supper the crew remained in the forecastle, spinning 
yarns, till "the 'oor o' night's black airch the keystane." 
The company was enlivened by a cousin of one of the 
crew, who inquired if there were any steerage passen- 
gers on board. " None but this poor boy going back 
to Scotland under the care of the captain. He has 
been trying to be a sailor, but fails to overcome sea- 



OF DAVTD JOHNSTON. 67 

sickness. He is therefore going back to his parents, 
from whom the young rascal ran away." Kindly turn- 
ing to me, the stranger asked me if I really wished to 
go back on the effort necessary to become a seaman. 

" Man," said he, " the great Lord Nelson himself 
never thoroughly overcame seasickness, and yet you 
have no doubt read at school what kind of a sailor he 
made of himself. I am sailing on board the Ann Dal- 
rymple, of Methel, in Fifeshire, lying in the Pool. 
Our captain wants a cabin-boy, and I think you will 
suit. Come right along with me. The same tide that 
takes the Trusty down stream this morning takes us. 
We ballast at Purfleet, and off to Riga, in the Baltic 
sea. We have a kind captain. I'll protect you from 
the mate, who is, nae doot, a bit of a Tartar." 

This man's eloquence silenced every scruple, and 
away we went rejoicing, together, to tackle once more 
my insidious enemy, lured to the combat by the beauty 
and grandeur of old Father Thames. The dockyard at 
Deptford, named by Caesar in finding the streamlet a 
little too deep for the passage of his legions on his 
way to London, is now mainly used as a granary for 
the army and navy of the great nation, and the old 
Dreadnaught, eighty-four gun ship, used as a hos- 
pital for the navy. The Isle of Dogs is opposite, 
where the pleasure-seeking profligate, Charles, kept his 
favorite canine specimens, who vied with himself in 
wisdom. To attempt to describe the glory and grandeur 
of Greenwich would be out of place here, further than 
to simply make mention of a few of its outstanding 
features : its proportionate architecture ; the humane 
purpose to which it is appropriated ; its celebrated 



68 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

painted ceiling and hall ; the identical coat through 
which the ball sped to reach the heart of England's 
noblest naval hero at Trafalgar ; the deer park ; the far- 
famed hill surmounted by Flamborough House, from 
which the longitude of the world is computed; the marine 
school, with its ship full-rigged on dry land, and the 
number of disabled naval pensioners to be seen peram- 
bulating ad libitum about the extensive grounds, mak- 
ing the glorious resting-place of the disabled seamen of 
Old England a world in itself and a credit to the nation. 
About two miles below this princely building, and 
opposite Blackwall, there still stood in that day a rem- 
nant of barbarism happily to be seen now nowhere 
within the bounds of civilization, viz : the skeletons of 
eight fellow-creatures on three gibbets dangling in 
chains. Blackwall has long been famed for its catering 
capacity, particularly for its whitebait, a tiny fish caught 
nowhere else, and which the caterers know how to 
cook. A dinner at Lovejoy's is not easily forgotten, 
but the little "knowledge I possess on the subject has 
been acquired many years subsequent to the period of 
which I am writing. We leave the table and the means 
by which man is supposed to be recruited and turn to 
the potent instruments at once of his protection and 
destruction. We are now off Woolwich. Patriotism 
has had much to do with the attainment of the wonder- 
ful perfectibility of the architecture of the British navy. 
The prescriptive constitution of England appears to be 
naturally interwoven in the heart and soul of every one 
born under her flag. The protection of that constitu- 
tion has for many years largely fallen to the glory of 
her wooden walls. Here from keel to royal in mathe- 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON. 69 

matical proportions those huge leviathans, which prove 
in their dextrous handling a terror to less scrupulous 
nations, are constructed. Here, also, adjoining in the 
Royal Arsenal, the death-dealing ordnance is forged 
and tested, with all the concomitant operations neces- 
sary to accuracy of aim, and all the countless variety of 
missiles with which the warlike student problematically 
mitigates the evils of war by rendering it more fatal 
and terrific. Abreast of the arsenal lie at anchor two 
vessels called the Hulks, where the evil-doers of the 
United Kingdom are concentrated preparatory to trans- 
portation to distant misery. Nor must the more re- 
mote features of Woolwich be overlooked : the exten- 
sive artillery barracks, the practicing ground, the cadet 
academy, and the Rotunda, which was formerly erected 
in St. James's Park, wherein to entertain the crowned 
heads of Europe during the transitory peace of 1814, 
now employed on Woolwich common as a repository of 
arts, in which may be seen a variety of fine models of 
British possessions abroad, such as Gibraltar, Malta and 
others ; also, models of ships in sections, showing im- 
proved methods of shipping horses, etc. An ingenious 
clock in this building may deserve a passing notice, 
from the fact of its requiring no winding up, and is 
reputed to be the nearest approach to perpetual motion. 
On passing Woolwich we heave in sight of another 
historically interesting spot on the opposite bank of 
the Thames. Purfleet stands on the Essex bank of 
the river, and here, in imminent danger of invasion, 
Elizabeth adressed her troops. The fleet being threat- 
ened with destruction by the approaching formidable 
Armada, the queen in ecstacy was made to ejaculate, 



70 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES. 

"Alas, my poor fleet ! " Hence the name of the village. 
Situated in a quiet, secluded nook, out of the way of 
navigation, the government was not long insensible to 
its advantages as a spot wherein to deposit the nation's 
combustibles. Therefore, at an early day, in a very 
unostentatious way, the great national magazine was 
founded. 



CHAPTER XII. 



" The dawn is overcast, the morning lowers 

On every window-frame hang beaded damps 
Like rows of small illumination lamps 
To celebrate the jubilee of showers." 

— Hood. 

THE BALTIC SEA. 

HERE, at this little wharf, the good sloop Ann 
Dalrymple was moored to receive her ballast 
from the neighboring chalk pit, and here for the first 
time I signed articles. My wages were to be condi- 
tionally ten shillings a month. If sick, I was to get as 
much as the captain valued my services to be worth ; 
so expecting nothing I could not well expect to be dis- 
appointed. Against a light easterly wind we tacked 
down the stream, which gave us a good chance of 
obtaining a fine view of the Devonshire, at her 
moorings near Gravesend. This was one of the last, if 
not the last, of this class of huge, warlike merchantmen 
employed by the East India Company during the 
period of their charter, which gave to them the rich 
monopoly of all the products of the East for the 
United Kingdom. They were certainly a noble look- 
ing craft, but slow. A voyage to China and back was 
considered good if done in sixteen months. The clip- 
per of to-day will run it in four months. There is 

71 



72 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

nothing remarkable about Gravesend and Tilbury Fort, 
opposite, except their weakness. The enormous 
amount of national wealth in the Thames, even in the 
metropolis itself, for many years lay singularly open 
to easy invasion. This anomaly existed down to a very 
recent date, when there appeared in the reading world 
Chesney's fiction entitled "The Battle of Dorking/' This 
pamphlet was graphically written, and the possibility 
of such a disaster so clearly portrayed that it made a 
sensible impression on the whole nation, and inspired the 
authorities with a lively appreciation of danger. Hence 
the late improvements of the points of defense. Three 
hundred guns of the largest caliber are now defending 
those points. 

We are now passing the conflux of the Medway 
with the Thames, where lay in ordinary the surplus 
naval power of the nation ; and where, about the 
end of the last century, the great mutiny transpired. 
Wherever a strict discipline is necessary petty annoy- 
ance on the part of subordinate officials is sure to be- 
come one of its concomitants, particularly when power 
is purchasable with money. Many a " round robin " 
grievance had been, from time to time, placed before 
the Lords of the Admiralty in vain. At length patience 
gave way, and the fleet rebelled. The mutiny was or- 
derly and systematically conducted. The mutineers 
appointed their officers and slackened in nothing involv- 
ing true discipline. High in the esteem of the mutineers 
stood Mr. Parker, an excellent sailor, of good parts, and 
possessed of decided executive ability. In loud accla- 
mation, he was, unfortunately for himself, appointed 
admiral. A formidable list of grievances was laid 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON. 73" 

before the Admiralty Board. Awaiting a reply there- 
to, behold a signal from the Nore Light to Chatham 
that the victorious fleet, under command of Lord Dun- 
can, had hove in sight, bearing the glad tidings that 
success had crowned his mission. He had destroyed 
the threatening Dutch navy off Camperdown, and in 
glory returned to his native land just in time to accom- 
plish, as a peacemaker, a much more important victory 
than that which had intoxicated England with ecstatic 
joy. Sensible of the gravity of the condition into* 
which this all-important arm had been precipitated, 
willing to remove tangible existing abuses, yet 
highly disapproving the means employed to redress 
those disabilities, he became a sort of arbitrator be- 
tween the government and the mutineers. This up- 
rising has not been fruitless, but, as usual, the law will 
claim its victim, and poor Parker had to die an igno- 
minious death at the yard-arm of the ship of which, for 
a brief season, he held supreme control. 

Passing the Nore Light, and through the Swin into 
the North Sea, I soon found my old enemy was not to 
be baffled, and that my prospective maximum wage be- 
gan to recede from my mental vision ; but the captain, 
unlike Patterson, was kind, so that my helpless condi- 
tion was thereby greatly ameliorated. He even com- 
miserated my condition, and marveled that I could live 
on what I ate. We are in the Cattegat, approaching the 
bold headland whereon the ghost of Hamlet's father 
made the night hideous in his transient re-visit to his 
native Denmark in his interview with his old friend 
Horatio and his bewildered son. Here we, in common 
with all vessels entering the Baltic Sea, paid toll to the 



74 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

Dane, an impost no longer existing. Thanks to the 
American marine for its abolition. We pass the beau- 
tiful city of Copenhagen, with its fine spires and innu- 
merable windmills. It appears that every action in life 
in Denmark is driven by the wind. Now, in the tide- 
less Baltic, we experience the first blow, and lose our 
dog overboard, a fine Newfoundland fellow, much liked 
by the captain and all the crew. 

We arrive at the mouth of the Dwina, and under the 
protection of the Czar of All the Russias. A custom- 
house boat manned by eleven men, the chief and 
ten rowers, who, with the exception of two, who were 
left in charge of the boat, boarded the sloop sans cere- 
monie. These unwelcome visitors put the captain and 
those of the crew who had been here before on the 
alert to guard against the notorious thieving propensi- 
ties of the Russian serf. Our captain invited the officer 
to dinner, and while the splendid piece of English beef 
was cooking, the boat's crew, obtaining access to the 
hold, lessened the expense of discharging our ballast 
by stealing the chalk it contained. The bell announced 
the hour for dinner, when the captain, mate, and the 
officer, with keen appetites, sat down to partake of the 
hospitalities of the Ann Dalrymple, myself to wait on 
them. Pea soup was the first course, but in ladling 
out the soup the cook discovered that the beef had 
disappeared, and in the spirit of disappointment came 
aft to announce the sad disaster. It is supposed the 
meat was extracted from the boiling cauldron while 
the cook had turned around to feed his fire or other 
cause, and had then been dropped overboard into the 
thieves' own boat, to be hidden among the stolen chalk. 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON. 75 

Some eight or ten miles up stream, after discharg- 
ing the remainder of our ballast, we find ourselves 
safely moored, stern on, to the floating bridge in the 
harbor of the city of Riga. 

Our voyage here being entirely speculative, and 
trade being dull, had the effect of prolonging our 
sojourn to an unprofitable extent, and, indeed, threat- 
ened to lock us up during the long, dreary months of 
a Russian winter. One more day's frost would have 
sufficed to settle that point. Happily, the captain was 
anxious to get home ; and his half cargo of seed wheat 
and flax, being consigned to the port of Leith, which is 
only a few miles from his native place, where his wife 
and family lived, rather than run the risk of being 
detained all winter he tore himself away through a 
crust of ice three inches thick. This movement proved 
the more desirable from the fact that the Russian 
marine law forbids the use of fire on board ship while 
in harbor. All cooking must therefore be done on 
shore in rude sheds provided for the purpose. In these 
sheds there is a raised stone platform, whereon the fires 
of each ship are built and used. This establishment is 
presided over by an old soldier, evidently chosen for 
his cross-grained cruelty, and armed with a fearful 
weapon, composed of some half-dozen leather thongs, 
tipped with fire-hardening, and fastened to the end of 
a two-foot long stick, and woe betide the urchin who 
drifts under the real or fancied displeasure of this 
specimen of humanity, especially if his vessel hails 
from Britain, — that dear little spot, which appears 
to be at once hated and feared by the nations of 
the earth in proportion to their ignorance of her good 



76 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

qualities. When gloating over his favorite amusement 
he was wont, in broken English, to give utterance by- 
way of emphasizing his lashes, the following argumen- 
tative jargon : " Russman dobra, Prussman dobra, 
Daneman dobra, Frenchman dobra, Swedeman dobra, 
Spainman dobra," and the list had to correspond with 
the length of the chastisement, and could only be limited 
by the inflictor's average knowledge of geography. 

Our passage to Scotland would have been monoto- 
nous but for the fact that the crew of a wrecked 
schooner took passage at Elsinore with us, and the 
captain of said crew, being fond of the bottle, and lay- 
ing in a good supply of strong Holland gin for the 
voyage, and it never having been known that our good 
captain was in the habit of casting the delectable stuff 
over his left shoulder, had the effect of converting the 
virtuous cabin of the Ann Dalrymple into a Bacchana- 
lian disgrace. Nor was the effect confined to the cabin. 

Drunkenness produces a great variety of idiosyn- 
cracies of character on the part of its victims. Its 
pranks are manifested on no two alike. In this case the 
feeling of generosity was the attribute played upon. 
All had to taste, from mate to cabin-boy, and soon the 
forecastle out-heroded the cabin in thoughtless jollity, 
and by the time we reached the British coast there was 
not a man on board who was able to distinguish the 
revolving light on the promontory of Flamborough 
Head from that of the island of May, a hundred miles 
apart ! (Need we marvel at the number of shipwrecks?) 
For five dark nights I was kept in the crosstrees look- 
ing out, and when the May was descried it was taken 
for the more southern light, and we veered to the north 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON. 77 

accordingly. Nor were the dreamy eyes of the sapients 
undeceived until the rays of the morning light dis- 
closed the fact of our near approach to Peterhead. 
Then, under the sense of shame and self-reproach, 
bustle and activity suddenly became the order of the 
day. To regain our lost way the better part of the east 
coast of Scotland had to be navigated against a light 
contrary wind, which cost us nearly two days. At 
length, after a pleasant sail up that beautiful estuary, 
the Firth of Forth, we arrived at our destination; and 
now the wage problem had to be solved. Inauspi- 
cious hour ! The baneful effects of the late prolonged 
debauch, aggravated by an enforced sobriety, was reveal- 
ing a sad change on the countenance of the usually 
kind-hearted captain. His wonted suavity had all 
departed and given place to a moroseness fearful to 
look upon. The hands were paid off, and I was called 
to settle up. I listened to a long list of all my short- 
comings, some of which I was vain enough to deem 
exaggerated. He then requested me to sign a full dis- 
charge of all my claims against the Ann Dalrymple, 
and paid me two shillings and sixpence. The off- 
handed manner in which the captain had disposed of 
my claim on the Ann Dalrymple by the payment of 
half-a-crown I thought was open to reconsideration. 
It is true the contract was rather loosely drawn, and 
my expectations anything but extravagant, but an im- 
partial retrospect of the voyage led me to believe that 
Captain Hutton's drunken " ipse dixit," if honest, was 
anything but liberal. I therefore sought an interview 
with that gentleman, but he had crossed the Firth to 
his family, and I was left to make the most of my 



78 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES. 

wealth. The weak has to take the wall. I suppose I 
tried to philosophize, and on my way east broke my 
half-crown in the purchase of a penny bap, which, 
moistened with clear water, made a very wholesome 
dinner for a dyspeptic, leaving a remnant of hunger to 
do the office of digesting another such meal, if such 
should fall in my way. As it fell out, I had at Tran- 
ent to diminish the proceeds of my Baltic trip to satisfy 
the cravings of troublesome hunger till I reached my 
dreaded home. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



" No shrine I seek to sects unknown ; 
Oh, point to me the path of truth! 
Thy dread omnipotence I own; 

Spare, yet amend, the faults of youth." 

— Byron. 

4< I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, 
I have sinned against heaven and before thy face, and am no more 
worthy to be called thy son." 

TO describe my feelings at this juncture of my 
hitherto useless existence is beyond my power. 
I remember having been assailed, for the first time, 
by a desire to die. I had heard of people dying by 
their own hands, but an idea of this kind, thank God, 
did not trouble me. I sat alone at the east end of 
Leith Links, with seventeen miles between me and my 
offended home, shoeless, and partially covered with 
rags, discharged as useless from my chosen field of 
action, and hunger craving to be appeased by the 
product of my three-months' voyage, which was still 
ensconced deeply in the pocket of my tarry canvas 
breeks. What shall I do to obviate swallowing the 
bitter pill of facing home? To call on Wright, the 
scene of Bonner & Co's ship-owner's scheme, I should 
be laughed at. My appearance would shock the refine- 
ment of the Davidson family, that of R. Millar, on the 

79 



80 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

North Bridge, my mother's cousin. It came to the 
alternative of the road to the Nungate or troubling 
my mother's sister, Mrs. Allan, a widow, a second 
thought of whose struggles decided the question. 

My involuntary disguise I assisted, on passing 
points of the road where I was known, by drawing my 
canvas apology for a hat over my shamed face. Weary 
and footsore I approached the humble dwelling in the 
Nungate with fear and trembling. Self-condemned, 
like the prodigal son, I was incapable of estimating 
the power and elasticity of parental affection. My 
sins were as scarlet. How could they be forgiven? 

The Nungate, on Tyne's eastern shore, 
Sae fraught wT ancient classic lore, 

Its brig o' stane and lime, 
That's braved Tyne's rapid rising flood, 
And many a shock has firmly stood — 

Nae man can tell the time. 

This fine old bridge of three arches was so narrow 
that two carts could not pass each other, and its Nun- 
gate approach was very little wider than the bridge. 
In this narrow street stands the old stone house 
wherein our little family had lived for many years ; the 
house which the prodigal feared to enter. One end of 
the oblong building was devoted to baking the staff of 
life, while the other end, at least the front part of it, 
was employed as a shop, the entrance between which 
(though chilly) was open. Mustering sufficient cour- 
age to slide in I met my mother in the passage, and 
asked her for a penny loaf, holding out my hand, ex- 
posing the coin to pay for it. This step I thought 
necessary to counteract the supposed influence of my 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON. 81 

personal appearance. Unable longer to hold out, in 
true Eastlothian vernacular I " grat," and said, 
" Mither, dae ye nae ken yer ain son?'' My father 
came instantly ben, and Christ's beautiful parable was 
reenacted, followed by mistaken kindness, which, by 
dint of rich viands in an impoverished stomach, threw 
me into a violent fever, which kept me in bed for the 
remainder of the year. On the 20th of January, 1820, 
the nation was thrown into mourning by the death of 
George III, the good-intentioned, but weak and badly 
advised king, whose demise was shortly followed by 
that of his son, the Duke of Kent, father of the pres- 
ent queen. My brother lingered a few weeks, and 
passed away at the age of nineteen years. 

Some eighteen months prior to his death a tragedy 
was enacted in which his most intimate friend, Peter 
Bowers, was made to act the principal part, and which 
I think is worthy of notice in this narrative. Peter was 
the only son of an aged lady residing near Dalkeith, 
and up to this fatal period his conduct inspired his 
mother and all his numerous friends with the most 
buoyant hopes of his future. He was apprenticed to 
Richard Catleugh, millwright and engineer in the 
Nungate, and when nearly out of his time he and R. 
Catleugh, Jr., were sent to repair the wauk mill of Mr. 
Weir, at Gifford. When the repairs were completed 
Mr. Weir brought out refreshments, accompanied by a 
bottle of " Scotland's skaith," as the judge on the trial 
called the contents. They all drank freely and got 
drunk. On their way home, laden with their tools, the 
two staggered on a party of rustics amusing themselves 
leaping from the more elevated footpath into the car 
6 



82 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

riageway. Peter challenged the best of them for two- 
pence. The wager was taken up by an old plowman of 
the name of Saunders, in the employ of Robert Laurie, 
brother of Sir Peter Laurie, the great saddler, who sub- 
sequently became lord mayor of London. Peter Bow- 
ers lost the wager, and on the stakes being demanded 
refused to pay on the score of unfairness. An angry 
dispute arose, and although no blows were struck they 
had recourse to a more dangerous mode of warfare, 
that is, "maken a muck-heap, " which is accomplished 
by getting the objectionable one down and then falling 
on top of him. The condition of Peter made him an 
easy opponent. Prostrate on the water-table lay the 
victim, and those heavy plowmen, one after another, 
throwing themselves upon him, he became exasperated 
to that degree that had his tools been handy the act he 
committed, if not deemed justifiable, would have been 
morally, if not legally, palliated. But the evidence 
clearly elicited the fact of his having traveled from the 
scene of the scuffle to the tree under whose branches 
he had deposited his tools, lifted his axe, retraced his 
steps, and, notwithstanding he foamed with rage, singled 
out his opponent and knocked his brains out. The 
trial was a solemn affair. I took a seat in the gallery 
of the court, which was that of the High Court of 
Justiciary, Edinburgh. The trial presented a picture 
such as can never be erased from my mind. For a 
graphic description thereof, the reader must fall back 
on Scott, in his " Heart of Midlothian." Up to the 
period of which I write, there had been very little 
change in the severe aspect of the administration of 
justice under the Scottish jurisprudence. There were 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON. 83 

the judges, five in number, all wigged and ermined, 
the advocates pro and con, the barristers, briefed and 
briefless, the clerks of court, writers to the signet, 
sheriff, procurator fiscal, and fifteen jurymen, sworn to 
well and truly try the case between our sovereign lord 
the king and the prisoner at the bar, all solemnly 
assembled to redeem the offended law. Who is charged 
with breaking that law? The only son of that broken- 
hearted widow who sits weeping at the door, and to 
complete the awful scene, between two of the old city 
guard, in their picturesque uniform and Lochaber axes, 
the prisoner is ushered before that awful tribunal, 
which possesses the power either to restore him to the 
arms of a heart-broken mother in his wonted freedom, 
or to doom him to an ignominious death on the scaf- 
fold. All eyes were strained to trace the countenance 
of that anomalous youth whose appearance, and the rec- 
ord of whose life, gave the stern lie to the supposition 
that he could be guilty of such a crime of entertaining 
for one moment what is termed malice prepense. The 
brain and respectability of two counties were moved in 
his behalf, but sympathy was powerless in the face of 
the damning fact that the space between the scene of 
the homicide and that of the instrument of destruction 
used was sufficiently apart to allow of reflection. So 
the court opined, and hence the sable sealed unanimous 
verdict of an intelligent jury. Peter Bowers was 
doomed to die by the hands of the common hangman 
at the Tolbooth of Edinburgh on a given day, where- 
upon the whole community was aroused in his behalf. 
From ministers, elders, judges, teachers, even the lord 
lieutenant of East Lothian, came pouring in petitions 



84 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

urging commutation. At length the executive yielded 
to an importunity which was unparalleled in the history 
of the court, and granted the questionable boon of sub- 
stituting transportation for life and branding with the 
letter M, for the death penalty. In a letter from Peter 
two years later he declared that had the choice been 
left to him, while thankful for the kind sympathy of 
his friends, he would prefer the latter punishment. He 
further wrote that it lies beyond the power of tongue 
or pen to portray the horrors of transportation to penal 
settlements. 

My fever abating, and otherwise convalescent, I 
found the London fever assuming the ascendant in my 
wayward cranium. I resolved to leave the scene of 
my birth forever, and on the 27th of November, 1820, 
embarked at Leith on board the Lord Wellington 
smack as a steerage passenger. We had a very rough 
passage of fourteen days' duration, having twice touched 
the coast of Norway. At length, with loss of bowsprit 
and some sails, and otherwise dilapidated, we found a 
haven in Harwich, in Norfolk. Those passengers who 
had means, and were impatient of delay, took coach for 
London. Among them was an Episcopal minister, 
upon whose shoulders were saddled all the disasters of 
the fourteen days' knocking about the North Sea by 
the superstitious crew, some of whom declared that 
without doubt a fair wind for the Thames would set in 
the moment we were well quit of the Jonah. A cap- 
tain in the navy and some ten other cabin passengers 
joined the parson. Several remained on board, among 
whom was an officer in charge of a Highland female of 
the name of Ross, who was prisoner in the forecastle, 



OF DAYID JOHNSTON. 85 

and who was transported for fourteen years to Van 
Dieman's Land. She had for years kept the Rob Roy 
public house on the shore of Leith, and was convicted 
of passing a forged Bank of England note, with a face 
promise of ten pounds. She had wealth and some 
influence. The exercise of the latter procured the 
privilege of taking a favorite grandchild into banish- 
ment with her. During the few hours we were in 
Harwich it became painful to witness the wild, unrea- 
sonable efforts of this woman to escape her punishment. 
She exposed two purses of a hundred sovereigns each, 
and offered them all to anyone who could put her 
ashore, a proposition made in the sight and hearing of 
vigilance personified. The eye and ear of the guardian 
angel were ever present at the only hatch or place 
of exit from her miserable berth, and therefore any 
attempt to cheat the Hulks at such a time and place 
would be akin to madness. On the morning of the 
nth day of December the seers of the crew w r ere con- 
firmed in their prognostications on this occasion, for a 
more beautiful winter morning never dawned. The 
wind came in a stiffish breeze from the north, which 
had the effect of bringing out the south-bound fleet, 
which had been for more than two weeks accumulating 
along the coast in shelter, and a grander sight it never 
was my lot to behold before nor since. From Harwich 
harbor to the Pool at London was one dense forest of 
masts in danger of getting foul of each other. We are 
now above Gravesend, and with the exception of two 
unfortunate souls we were happy in the thought of 
safely arriving, after a passage of some danger and a. 
good deal of rough experience. Now the government 



86 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

boat awaits the arrival of the Wellington to receive the 
condemned one and her innocent grandchild, and to 
place them on board the detestable Hulks preparatory 
to a miserable voyage of six months' duration. We 
arrive abreast of the floating horror at Woolwich. The 
smack lays to, the boat is lashed alongside. A formal 
demand is made for the custody of the criminal, accom- 
panied by papers explanatory of the departure on the 
part of the Scottish court. Intense interest was mani- 
fested on their behalf. After the trite farewell expres- 
sions a dead silence ensued, which was painfully affect- 
ing. The prisoner had kept her bunk nearly all the 
voyage. She was but little known to either the crew 
or passengers, who were taken by surprise on behold- 
ing a lady well and tastefully attired in satin, a rich 
veil partially concealing a good looking countenance 
that might have seen some forty-three years. The poor 
thing had donned her best attire for the occasion, 
doubtless looked upon as household gods, but which 
must, in a few minutes, be torn rudely from her person 
and replaced by the coarse, degrading habiliments of 
the convict. 

" Verily, the way of the transgressor is hard." The 
law is very tender of its victims. See with what care 
and solicitude the half-hung wretch is recuscitated to 
fit him for his second, and it is to be hoped less bun- 
gling, execution. Mrs. Ross was kindly assisted over the 
gunwail of the Wellington, her rich dress tenderly ad- 
justed below while descending the rope ladder into the 
boat. Just at this juncture a rich tenor voice, in 
imitation of the old song, struck up, " And shall I see 
your face again, and shall I hear you speak ; I'm down- 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON. 87 

right dizzy wi' the thought, in troth I'm like to greet," 
and I can assure the reader that as the smack resumed 
her course the " greeting " was by no means confined to 
the singer. If there was a dry eye in that crowd, mine 
was too moist to detect it. The tenor was a Mr. Elliott, 
a tailor in Westminster. He was seconded by a fine 
young soldier returning from furlough, of the name of 
McCullough, of the Coldstream Guards, who by dint of 
his superior education was relieved of military duty, 
and employed all his time in the office of Earl Fitz 
Clarence, son of the Duke of Clarence, afterward Will- 
iam the Fourth, the sailor king. Before Charing Cross 
was metamorphosed I had met Mac in the King's 
Mew's barracks, the ground whereon stand the National 
Gallery, Nelson's monument, and surroundings. At 
six p.m. the Lord Wellington was safely moored at 
Downie's wharf, Wapping, after a tedious passage of 
fourteen days, — now done by rail in about as many 
hours. Twelve hours from Harwich, ioo miles, in- 
cluding the delay at Woolwich. On our arrival a 
search was made for contraband goods. A bottle of 
whisky found in the trunk of a steerage passenger was 
seized, and the fellow threatened with a fine. Pleading 
ignorance of the excise law the disputants drifted into 
the office. I went in with them, and who should fol- 
low at our heels but the naval officer and the minister, 
who had just arrived by coach from Harwich. On giv- 
ing instructions to the clerks relative to their baggage 
when the vessel should arrive, they were informed that 
the Wellington had been lying at the wharf for the 
last hour, which they deemed incredible, being ignorant 
of the Jonah theory. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



" The world is a bundle of hay, 

Mankind are the asses who pull ; 
Each tugs in a different way, 

And the greatest of all is John Bull. " 

— Byron. 

NOW I am in London, the city of the world ; the 
Scotchman's field of laudable effort ; the head and 
front of civilization ; the rewarder of merit, and the 
chastiser of everything low. This very spot, too, 
Downie's wharf, is suggestive of a retrospect which is 
by no means flattering to myself. Here, years ago, I 
spent a night on board the Trusty, Captain Christy, 
sent by my cold half-brother on my supposed way back 
to an offended home. Here pride gained the ascend- 
ancy and led me a dance up the Baltic, to escape an 
ordeal which that very step had the effect of aggravating 
to a ten-fold degree, but it may be all for the best. At 
least I know it's good to think so. I begin to feel the 
importance of the present juncture as a new starting 
point. I am in London ; I am eighteen years old, in 
possession of as many shillings as years in hard cash, 
a good sound constitution, a good trade at my finger 
ends, and a determination second to none. What, then, 
do I lack to insure success? Judgment, sound judg- 

88 



AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES. 89 

merit. Alas ! that is an attribute that never has held a 
prominent place in the composition of my character. 
The wages of a journeyman baker in those days ran, 
for foremen, from 20 to 30 shillings a week ; for second 
hands, from 15 to 20; for third hands, from 9 to 14. 
My first place with Mr. Gibb, Silver street, Golden 
square, brought ten shillings a week. 

This was obtained through the medium of what is 
termed in London a house of call. Every trade has its 
house or houses of call, and to the uninitiated they are 
very useful. They partake of the communistic and 
the office of intelligence principles combined. Those in 
place never allow the outs to starve. The landlord 
keeps a record of applications for men, and all the 
members are interested in supplying the wants of the 
trade in that direction in order to relieve themselves of 
a self-imposed tax. Having traveled the streets for 
six weeks, my exchequer down to a solitary shilling, 
the receipt of my first week's wage was very acceptable. 
Of course, a portion of this had to be applied to treat 
the boys who helped me to gain this round of the 
ladder by which to climb to fortune. Now all London 
was astir to have his first parliament opened in person 
by that notable specimen of royalty, George the Fourth. 
Riots having occurred at his coronation, when he 
rudely debarred Queen Caroline of the privilege, many 
were apprehensive that such might characterize this, 
his first public act as king. The town was divided, 
but such is the intoxicating effect of royal pageantry 
on the multitude that I should hesitate to give cre- 
dence to that of which I was on that occasion an eye 
and ear witness. I took my stand among the gaping 



90 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES. 

crowd in Piccadilly, where his Majesty was coolly 
received. I was borne along in the living mass as near 
to the royal carriage, drawn by eight richly caparisoned 
horses, as I could get. At Charing Cross the coolness 
had ripened into a hiss. At the Horse Guards faint 
hisses mingled with loud cheers, down Parliament 
street cheers gaining the ascendancy, and by the time 
the cavalcade arrived at the parliament house no 
sound but the most throat-cracking huzzas saluted my 
unsophisticated ear. Consistency, thou art a jewel ! 
Aspiring to a higher round in the ladder after the 
coronation I soon found a second hand's place of 
seventeen shillings with Mr. Baldie, of Frith street, 
Soho square. During this year (1822) the King 
visited Scotland, and who should have the honor of 
being the chosen few to accompany him became the 
theme of angry controversy and much jealousy in high 
places, — so much so that the celebrated Lord Castle- 
reagh retired in high dudgeon to his country seat, and 
destroyed himself by severing his jugular vein. The 
King in his caprice had taken into his social councils 
a rich, ignorant baker of the name of Sir William 
Curtis, the man who, it is said, proposed at a Baccha- 
nalian spree a toast of "the three C's," and on being 
asked to explain said the three C's stood for Church, 
King and Curtis. This man was at this period car- 
tooned and caricatured as no other man ever was, 
and he had in his mansion a very large apartment 
in which to display them. One I well remember. 
He was dressed in a grotesque Highland costume, 
and for a sporran, hanging from the lower part of his 
huge body, an immense turtle, of the flesh of which 



OF DAYID JOHNSTON. 91 

creature he was known to be passionately fond. 
The King had the bad taste to carry this voluptuous 
ignoramus with him to the north, creating thereby 
a good deal of gossiping scandal from his coarse- 
ness. Strange conduct on the part of one who 
was said to be the first gentleman in Europe ! The 
new Marriage Act was made law this year, as also 
the new Bread Law, doing away with the quartern and 
half-quartern loaves, rendering it penal to sell bread 
otherwise than by weight. About this time I became 
acquainted with Sophia Grainger, a young lady, the 
only daughter of an elderly widow lady living on her 
means in Somers Town. To the influence of this dear 
lady, morally and physically speaking, I confess to 
standing indebted for my salvation. The life of a 
journeyman baker in London is, to say the least, 
anomalous. Without the advantages of domesticity 
he is held in a species of slavery by his employers by 
means of the domestic tie. Bakers must sleep on the 
premises of the scene of their daily and nightly labor. 
Their barracks, as their sleeping apartment is termed, 
run from decent to the beastly. An incident may 
suffice to show the nature of the latter. I had aspired 
to the altitude of foreman, and engaged with a gentle- 
man who shall here be nameless. The bakehouse, as 
usual, was in the cellar, the oven beneath the public 
pavement. 

I asked for the barracks, wherein to deposit my sur- 
plus clothing, and was disgusted on being led into a 
dark nook in the cellar, fitted up with bunks for beds, 
and entirely without a chance of light or ventilation. 
My first impulse was to leave, but the thoughts of my 



92 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

new elevation induced me to stay to learn. This man 
was very religious ; employed much of his time distrib- 
uting religious tracts among the denizens of the neigh- 
boring mews, abolished Sunday trading, established 
domestic family worship in his splendid parlor, at which 
on Sunday morning all the domestics, male and female 
(three of each), were requested to attend, which I did 
once, and could not help thinking that that was once 
too often. I remained in his service six months, and 
on being asked my reasons for non-attendance at family 
worship I told him that after a night's rest in such a 
bed, in such a place, I failed to find myself in a frame 
of mind suitable for worship, and therefore should 
leave his service next Saturday night, which I did, 
and was afterward glad to learn that the rebuke was 
not thrown away. The hours of labor, too, are drawn 
out to an ungodly degree. Commencing at eleven 
p. m., his day's work is spun out till the following p. 
m. about six during the six lawful days in the week, 
and on Sundays from nine till two. Notwithstanding 
the limited time given him for rest and recreation it 
must be acknowledged that the hours were often 
very injudiciously spent. Dancing among the Scotch 
bakers laid claim to the hours that belonged to the bed 
and the book, and that thoughtless pastime taking a 
prominent part in the long list of my weaknesses I 
easily fell a victim to the fascinating maze. To keep 
the arrangement free from objectionable characters 
some twenty of us hired the Bedform rooms, High Hol- 
born, for two nights in the week. These rooms were 
kept by a highly respectable family of the name of 
Trevest, who seemed to be well pleased with our par- 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON. 93 

ties, as well they might, for in the whole course of sub- 
sequent experience I have failed to witness anything of 
the kind so well conducted. 

During 1825 I worked for Mr. Tate, corner of Hand 
Court, High Holborn. There I received the painful 
news of my father's death at eighty-four years of age. 
The celebrated banker Fauntleroy was executed at the 
Old Bailey in that year. Led on by the fascinations of 
a Mrs. Forbes he committed the most heartless frauds 
and caused the total ruin of numbers, among whom 
were many widows and orphans. About this epoch 
Daniel O'Connell was causiug some uneasiness in the 
councils of conservatism by his telling appeals to the 
people in behalf of Catholic emancipation. He is also 
charged with creating a movement which, in later years, 
under the auspices of his more fiery and less politic co- 
adjutor, Fergus O'Connor, gave some trouble and a good 
deal of apprehension. It was rumored also that he 
(Daniel O'Connell) wrote the celebrated document called 
the " Charter," which advocated a thorough change of 
government, rendered the more lucid to the masses by 
its distinguishing features, called points, viz: (1) Uni- 
versal suffrage, (2) vote by ballot, (3) annual parlia- 
ments, (4) non-property qualification, (5) payment of 
members of parliament ; in opposition to the present 
system of septennial parliaments: (2) Open voting, (3) 
property qualification of the exercise of the franchise, 
(4) non-payment of members of parliament, (5) property 
qualifications of members of parliament. 

This document called for a wide departure from 
the then present system, which, with all its faults, had 
stood the brunt of many a hard-fought battle and 



94 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

borne the nation on to a state of prosperity which was 
the envy of the world. Still the reforming spirit had 
fairly fastened on that wonderful people. It seemed 
that an obscuring veil had been withdrawn from 
the nation's vision, and suddenly exposed to view the 
most glaring inconsistencies. It saw and marveled 
at old Gatten and old Sarum, sitting in their easy con- 
servative chairs, playfully manufacturing political tools 
to help existing powers, to prolong monopolies aged in 
plethora. It saw busy Birmingham, with all its inge- 
nuity and all its energy, voiceless in the law-making 
process, and wondered at its own blindness. Now mo- 
nopoly trembled in its most impregnable stronghold — 
the Bank of England, the East India Company, the 
West India interest, with its system of human bondage, 
the high-handed landed interest lording it over the 
million in taxing the laborer's loaf. All these, with a 
thousand and one intermediate abuses, requiring the 
pruning-knife or, like the blasted fig-tree, rooting out. 
What a sickle-waiting harvest! Who the laborers? 
The house is divided against itself. The privileged 
class will have all things remain as they are. Open 
once the flood-gates of reform and who shall say what 
part of our sacred constitution will sustain the shock? 
The shallow-thinking understrata, taking pattern from 
a neighboring nation, would have all things swept away 
that they may, in their wisdom, begin anew. But, hap- 
pily, there is in Great Britain a wiser, sounder, deeper- 
thinking middle class. 

In their horny hands the sickle placed, 
Whate'er they undertake is ne'er disgraced. 

The happy blending of the two antagnonisms ap- 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON. 95 

pears to the subscriber as the course of wisdom. Surely 
he must be a blind reformer whose composition lacks 
the valuable ingredient of conservatism, and vice versa, 
the conservatism of an individual lies open to objection 
who opposes the removal of a palpable abuse, even if 
actuated by fear of consequences. I was working in 
Mount street, Grosvenor square, among the elite of the 
metropolis, when the first blow was struck at the West 
India monopoly by admitting the saccharine products 
of the Mauritius at an equal ratio of duty with those 
of the West Indies, which had the effect of rendering 
their entire property unproductive, and which paved 
the way for the abolition at a later day of that blot 
which for so many years had stained the otherwise fair 
escutcheon of Great Britain — human slavery. Under 
the auspices of Earl Grey the growing agitation for 
reform in parliament was fast ripening into an irresist- 
ible force. All the reformers seemed to agree to con- 
centrate their forces on some such measure as would 
augment the popular voice, well knowing that by in- 
creased facilities each particular hobby would be more 
easily attained. The Irish patriot was waxing strong 
when the Duke of York, in his Protestant zeal, in his 
place in parliament, made a violent anti-Catholic speech, 
ending in a solemn oath to do all in his power, while 
life lasted, to prevent Catholics sitting in parliament. 
This speech was printed in letters of gold, on vellum, 
and distributed broadcast over the kingdoms three, 
while Dan went on in the even tenor of his way. 

One of the most prominent men of the day was 
Henry Brougham. His father, Brougham of Vaux, in 
Cumberland, in his youth repaired to the Scottish cap- 



96 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL KEMLNTSCENCES 

ital, and married the sister of Robertson, the historian, 
and I believe Harry was the only issue of that union. 
He distinguished himself in his profession, and in liter- 
ary circles was one of the brightest ornaments of that 
famous galaxy of talent which adorned Edinburgh at 
that epoch ; but, like all aspiring Scotchmen, he par- 
took at an early date of the London fever, and the 
tone of his ambition may be gathered from the expres- 
sion he is said to have made use of when taking farewell 
of his friends and stepping into his carriage. "Good-by, 
friends," he said, "here goes the future Lord Chancel- 
lor of England" — a prognostication which was verified 
under very peculiar circumstances. He was one of 
those retained to defend the character of Queen Caro- 
line in opposition to the vile charges and insinuations 
advanced against that unhappy lady by an unkind 
husband and the pandering sycophants of a corrupt 
court. The evidence of the Duke of Clarence had 
been adduced against the Queen when H. R. H. for a 
short time left the court, and on his return, and when 
about to take his seat, Brougham was in the midst of a 
volley of invectives against the enemies of his client 
such as no other man could wield. In the heat of argu- 
ment he had the daring to utter the following words: 
" Notwithstanding the evidence of that royal slanderer 
now resuming his seat, the royal lady at the bar of 
this court is as innocent of the crimes and follies with 
which she is charged as the child unborn." We now leave 
the future lord to fight his own battles against a host of 
enemies in high places, increased in numbers and viru- 
lence by his action on the Queen's trial ; but if his pres- 
tige was impaired in the aristocratic ranks by his intern- 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON. 97 

perate language on that trial it was more than compen- 
sated for by the rise in the tide of popular sentiment. 

My acquaintance with Sophia had, in the course of 
four years, ripened into an inseparable attachment, and 
we mutually came to the conclusion that her mother 
should be made acquainted with our true position. My 
humble position in life made me backward, but the ordeal 
passed in a cordial reception, and my mind was much 
relieved by the prospect of the termination of a sort of 
vagabond life which naturally pertains to an undomesti- 
cated domestic. None but those who have been deprived 
of the amenities of life can possibly appreciate their true 
value. The gates were thrown open to a golden elysium 
— a happy home in which I was made most welcome. 

1824.. At this time, in a way stripped of all osten- 
tation, was borne the mortal remains of England's great 
poet, Lord Byron, on its way from Missolonghi, in 
Greece, where he died, to their final resting-place in 
Hacknall, near Newstead Abbey, the seat of his ances- 
try. Mine eyes beheld his faithful Fletcher following 
his beloved master's bier in the simple cortege proceed- 
ing through the streets of Camden Town, in the north- 
ern district of London. There were very few of his 
former admirers present. Amongst the few could be 
distinguished his bosom-friend, John Cam Hobhouse. 
Most of the 61ite who danced around the poet during 
his hours of idleness contented themselves on this 
solemn occasion by sending their empty carriages — a 
fitting representation of most of the hearts who owned 
them. With the honorable exceptions, I would say — . 

MEMENTO MORI. 



CHAPTER XV. 



"The best laid schemes o' mice an' men 
Gang aft a-gley." 

MY boon companion at that time in London was 
a noble fellow of the name of John Hay, whose 
father was under-steward or grieve of the estate of 
Richardson of Pitfour, in the Carse of Gowrie. John 
was paying his addresses to the handsome daughter of 
the janitor of Clement's Inn (one of the inns of court), 
who was well to do in addition to his good position, 
and was pretty free in giving nice little entertainments 
to his numerous acquaintances and friends, at which 
Sophie and I were welcome guests. At one of these 
social gatherings John (full of fun) rose and gravely 
proposed that inasmuch as there were two young men 
present who were daring enough to signify their inten- 
tion of entering into the bonds of matrimony, but who 
were, while yet free, desirous of visiting their native 
land across the Tweed, that their affianced brides, 
now also present, be required to vouchsafe their full, 
untrammeled consent, in the presence of this company, 
to the said young men's absence for a reasonable time, 
for that purpose. The acquiescence obtained, the 
wherewithal to carry out the proposition became a 
matter of grave solicitude. John had it. The Eliza, 



AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES. 99 

of Newburgh, Captain James Pitkethly, would be in 
port with a load of Perth Reds (the fashionable potato 
of the day) and then you'll see how glad he will be to' 
find room for us in his good sloop Eliza on her passage 
north. The Eliza in due time delivered her reds at the 
wharf. A bargain was struck, and in glorious weather/ 
lightly ballasted, and with hearts to match, we set sail 
for Scotland. In a few days we put into Sunderland 1 
for a load of coal. Arriving off the port too late in the 
evening, our signals were unperceived on the shore and 
we had to chop about in the offing all night with the 
lights of the tempting town on which to cast our long-' 
ing eyes. At early morn I had the pleasure of steering 
the Eliza through the arch of that which was considered 1 
the highest bridge in England at that period. This- : 
bridge was built at the expense of one Rolland Bordari, 
who had for years been subject to great inconvenience 
in his climbing the steep, rocky banks of the Wear to 
and from his work. To span this chasm by bridge be=~ 
came the ruling thought of his mechanical mind, but 
continued poverty forbade the hope of ever becoming;- 
able even to assist in the accomplishment of Mfe- life^ 
long desire. Still, by pinching economy, he saV'e&l 
enough of his wages to enable him to buy a sixteenth 
part of a share in a public lottery, which he did secretly, 
not even letting his own wife know anything of it, and 
when the glad tidings arrived, announcing the fact that 
Roily (as he was familiarly called) was enriched to the 
extent of twenty thousand pounds, she could not 
understand a word of the half-written, half-printed 
form which proved the basis of her husband's happi- 
ness. She therefore called a few of her neighbors in to 



100 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

explain, which they did, coupling their explanation with 
advice that the good news should be broken to Roily 
in such a manner as not to turn his brain, " for indeed 
we have," said they, " noticed of late his blathering 
a good deal about an imaginary brig across the Wear, 
and in the evening we will break the tidings to him in 
such a manner as shall be the least likely to disorder 
the mental faculties of Roily Bordan." Their plan was 
approved by Mrs. Bordan. They went on their mis- 
sion, met Roily at the Mitre tavern over his beer and 
pipe, sat down uninvited to participate in a social chat. 
The object of the visit of these self-elected delegates 
had to be wormed out of them by Roily himself, who, 
instead of being excited by the good news, was the 
coolest in the company, and asked all present to fill 
their glasses and drink a bumper with him. He had a 
toast to propose. All were charged, and now for the 
rich man's sentiment. All eyes fixed on the hero of 
the hour, he coolly rose from his seat, laid his long 
pipe aside, scanned the well known features of his com- 
panions, and said, in the most provokingly dispassionate 
manner: "Friends, here's better luck still," a toast 
which is proverbial in that neighborhood up to the 
present time. The crowning desire of Rolly's long, 
useful life was singularly verified in his living to see 
accomplished by the application of means rendered 
legally his own by an unjustifiable process of gambling 
legitimatized by the blind legislation of the day, hap- 
pily long since ignored. Laden with coal, the prow of 
our goodly craft was turned to the scene of her birth, 
and she seemed, by her lively bearing, to participate in 
the feeling of all on board, making good the saying 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON. 101 

that after a' there's nae place like hame. A distant 
view of the Bass-rock and the island of May on our 
larboard bow, and the classic Bell-rock on our starboard 
bow, we kissed the estuary of Scotia's chiefest river, the 
Tay, and on the morning of the eighth day from Lon- 
don we were abreast of bonny Dundee, a big fire in the 
heart of the town illuminating the scene at the time. 
On the following day we left the Eliza safe where first 
she embraced that element on which she proved an 
ornament of utility and for many years earned the 
bread of one of the most respectable families in New- 
burgh. We bade farewell to her kind-hearted, hospitable 
owner, Captain Pitkethly, for aye to dwell in thought, 
but never again in this life to see. It may indeed be 
said and sung " where the sweet waters meet." Ferried 
across the Tay, I was soon safely under the roof of as 
kind, warm-hearted a family as has ever been my good 
fortune to meet. Mr. Hay's cottage in the village of 
Pitfour is sheltered by the elms of the estate of his 
employer, whose confidence he seemed, as land-steward, 
to enjoy. A little beyond the meridian of life, may be 
said of both in age. Of family they had but two, John, 
my friend, who had been in London for several years, 
and James, who remained at home, and who became 
indispensably necessary to the country around as a 
contractor in carrying out agricultural improvements, 
especially in drainage. The poet truly says: "The best 
laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft a-gley." Our 
London-formed programme we found impracticable at 
the northern end. 

It was now three years since my father died, and 
not having seen my mother in the interim I was too 



102 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

anxious to remain in the carse during the stipulated 
time (a month), so we had to rearrange our plans, and 
for that purpose John accompanied me to Haddington. 
I found my mother very feeble, and living alone in a 
small cottage, happily close to the house occupied by 
Robert Allan and family, who looked after her kindly. 
Robert was eldest son of her sister Mary. 

NORTH OF THE FIRTH. 

I am now seated on the apex of the rising ground 
of Raith, near Kircaldy, and thinking that : 

Whoe'er would view Edina to the life, 

Must e'en surmount the classic hills of Fife, 

The Firth, embraced in all his golden sheen, 

Will beautify the tints that intervene. 

The busy marts of thrift on either shore 

The limner's mind will ecstasy the more. 

The Bass, the Isles of May, Cramond, Inchkeith, 

Her ain ancient thriving port of Leith, 

Approaching vessels looming through the haze 

Her frowning fort with jealous eye surveys; 

The pier, O, Granton! gift of good Buccleugh, 

The village famed for fish and caller ou'! 

The laughing burn that warbles through the Dean, 

Whose banks are rich, though unco sma' the stream. 

Sic points of interest in harmony combined 

Elsewhere it would be difficult to find. 

And now a last, fond lingering view of the scenes of 
my early days, and turn to those of a world compara- 
tively cold and unknown. These are the finger-posts 
that force upon the traveler in his weary passage 
through life the heart-breaking regrets of the past, the 
uncertainty of the present and the dark forebodings of 
the future. A few steps down the northern slope 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON. 103 

seemed to shut me out from all that was worth living 
for in this world. With a heavy heart and foot-sore I 
walked across the ancient fertile kingdom of Fife (22 
miles), nor rested until I arrived at the beautiful loch of 
Lindores, a sweet spot which subsequently became very 
dear to me from kind friends in Chicago, hailing from 
Newburgh and the parish of Abney (in which this de- 
lightful sheet of water is situated). Waiting anxiously 
till dark for James Hay's boat to row me over the Tay, 
I then gave him up, and finding there was no ferry 
across the Tay short of the confluence of the Earn 
with the Tay, I reluctantly undertook the journey, 
which in the darkness was no small task. I had some 
difficulty in getting through the wood, but a great deal 
more when I did get through it, for I found Mr. W., 
the ferryman, and family, all asleep, and the door 
guarded by a chained bull-dog. 

Throwing up gravel against the window for some 
time brought out a head and shoulders, with a sten- 
torian, Who is there? I told him that he had six weeks 
ago put my friend John Hay and myself across to 
Pitfour, and that I particularly wanted to cross to- 
night, and I would pay extra for his trouble. Remind- 
ing me that he charged nothing for the last crossing, 
which was true, he seemed to close the window in 
anger, and I suppose, like Taylor's Monsieur Tonson's 
Frenchman, essayed another snooze by bringing his 
Kilmarnock cool in contact with his pillow. But no, 
my brave boatman, emphatically No! You refuse to 
put me across a dangerous stream in the darkest hour 
of the night. You keep your house closed against the 
stranger and virtually leave him to perish while you 



104 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

coolly seek repose. The drama, methinks, would be 
incomplete unless I played my part. I thus solilo- 
quized. With gravel in hand the resolve was taken 
that inasmuch as I was deprived of sleep myself it 
became my part to prevent the inmates of that anti- 
Scottish, inhospitable mansion from tasting, at least for 
the remainder of the night, "tired nature's sweet 
restorer/' so up went the gravel. The dog, too, had a 
sleepy spell, and slap went a volley of sharper stuff 
right into his kennel, which aroused him up to concert 
pitch in a mighty quick time, and I found in him a 
valuable auxiliary in the concert up to the close of the 
performance. Peppering away at every window of cham- 
bers wherein I thought nerves required tickling, at length 
I heard the window reopen, and out came the same 
Kilmarnock cool and the same head and shoulders, 
but with a fiercer aspect, and asked in the name of 
his satanic majesty what I meant. I said, you have 
cruelly deprived me of my night's rest by refusing the 
rights of a public ferry. You keep your house closed 
against me, a stranger. You rudely closed your win- 
dow when I was about to make a proposition which I 
will make now if you will deign to hear it. Considera- 
bly appeased, he replied, Well, what is it ? It is not 
to retrace my steps through that horrid wood in the 
dark, but to scull myself over the Tay, only giving me 
the use of a staunch boat and a good oar. Those you 
shall have if you like to run the risk, he said, but I 
warn you of the danger of the current, pointing in the 
dark in the direction in which to find what I wanted, 
and the window was closed. The contending currents 
of the two rivers make the passage somewhat danger- 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON. 105 

ous at this point, rendered more so by the peculiar 
position of Mugdrum Island. The night was so dark 
that I could not see a boat's length from me, but I 
found land on my starboard bow, and from my little 
knowledge of the topography of the spot saw that I had 
drifted out of my course and was gliding down the cur- 
rent of the Tay between the carse and the island, which,, 
if not early discovered, would have by daylight led me 
into immense labor to recover lost ground. But thanks 
to my early nautical experience I was enabled to redeem 
my false position, and with an extra hour's hard scull- 
ing against the stream landed safely on the Pitfour 
estate. I confess to having entertained, in the evil 
spirit of retaliation, a notion of turning the old man's 
boat adrift, but a moment's reflection brought back the 
better feeling, and I moored her as arranged to a tree. 
Traveling over three fields and climbing over fences 
terminated a day's journey such as I hope never again 
to undergo. 

To my agreeable astonishment I found the whole of 
the Hay family up and waiting my arrival, with supper 
steaming hot. They had received my letter at an hour 
too late to enable Jamie to get to Newburgh in time 
with his boat, and took for granted I would reach Pit- 
four by the very means which I had adopted, little 
dreaming of the misery brought about by the lateness of 
the hour and the obdurate old sleepy Charon. How- 
ever, thank God, that is all over, and the cheering effect 
of one hour of the hospitality of the Hays of Pitfour 
suffices to obliterate the remembrance of anything un- 
pleasant in reaching it. I had not long enjoyed it 
before I discovered that John's letter to Haddington 



106 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

was a ruse, for, as braw a toon as Lonun is, there was 
"no desire manifested in Pitfour to get to it. On the 
contrary, there were a thousand and one things to be 
attended to before London could be thought of. 
Hadn't we to see the lions of Dundee, its kirks, its 
docks, its bonnet hill, its factories, shops, and the bonny- 
house of Duncan's at the Magdalene, and, above all, 
the ride through the carse of Gowrie. Our friends at 
Errol, too, demand a day. Then the view from the hill 
of Kinnoul must not be omitted, not even the old 
home of the Richardsons, nor Camperdown, the seat of 
our naval hero, Lord Duncan, and to leave the fair city 
of Perth and the royal palace of Scone unscanned 
would simply be unpardonable. And then the Earn, 
Sir David Moncreiff's, and the brig of Earn, and Aber- 
nethy, with its Pictish tower. To omit the fair at 
Abernethy cannot be thought of. There you will 
find a gathering of the most antique, grotesquely hab- 
ited people that is to be found, I believe, in the world. 
" This is all very well, John, indeed, it's grand," said I, 
" but what says the belle of Clement's inn to it? Do 
you enjoy a London epistle occasionally, as I do ? If 
so, I presume the tenor of them are pretty similar 
regarding these two Scotch runaways." 

" You are right," said John, " and I must say that 
under the chastening rod of one of these epistles I 
wrote you that letter, and felt as I wrote, but now 
regret being the instrument of tearing you away so 
abruptly from your folks in Haddington, particularly 
your aged mother. Now we are here I feel like taking 
a few more days in this blessed country before we 
unscotch ourselves by returning to that degrading 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON. 107 

slavery which is involved in the life of a journeyman 
baker in London." 

John's eloquence I never could withstand. On the 
present occasion I was reminded of Ingomar's two 
hearts beating with one pulsation. So that whatever 
had been cut and dried we had to do, and two weeks 
were most agreeably spent in getting through the pro- 
gramme, when we bade farewell to the bonny carse o' 
Gowrie and took our berths on board of a London 
smack at Dundee, and in five days were sailing on the 
bosom of old Father Thames, landed safely near the 
Tower stairs, and spent the evening at a friend's house 
in Holywell street, Westminster. We found our in- 
tended brides respectively in good health, and in both 
cases the course of true love running (strange to say) 
unexceptionably smooth. 



CHAPTER XVI. 



LONDON. 



" Each year to ancient friendship adds a ring as to an oak, more 
and more precious without the aid of any merit of our own." 

TO resume such labor as falls to the lot of a jour- 
neyman baker in London after so delightful and 
extended a season of recreation I own was rather irk- 
some to me. But necessity has no law, and our respect- 
ive characters were such as to remove all obstacles in 
finding employment in the metropolis, and our ex- 
chequer pretty low, so we stripped to the inevitable. 
John went to work near Pentonville, I in Millbank 
street, Westminster. In my employer, Mr. Archibald 
Michie, I found the most extraordinary man it had 
ever been my lot to meet. He was a student, a 
deep thinker, in fact, a practical philosopher. In later 
years I never read Carlyle or any other luminary in the 
field of letters but my mind was involuntarily carried 
back to that Aberdonian sage. The only blemish I 
could discover in him was what in my maturer years I 
have been led to deem his chiefest attribute, his disci- 
pline, which I then thought partook somewhat too much 
of the tight disciplinarian to be tolerated, and actually 
was the means of severing a year's relationship which 
was both pleasurable and profitable to me. His public 

108 



AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES. 109 

character is well worthy of imitation, and I make men- 
tion of one effort of his which resulted in much good to 
the community: 

Previous to the county court system of reform, in 
the adjudication of small debts there existed a court 
called the court of requests, an institution of antiquity 
and of corresponding abuse. The accumulating funds 
were manipulated by commissioners in a very unsatis- 
factory manner for years, bidding defiance to the press 
and others who dared to counsel investigation. At 
length Mr. Michie undertook to cleanse the Augean 
stable single-handed. After struggling for years 
against all odds, among whom were many lawyers of 
ability whose interest made them inimical to any 
change, to the satisfaction and advantage of a discern- 
ing public, succeeded. Mr. Michie may justly be said 
to be the originator of the county court system now 
prevailing. Cautioned against living with and working 
for this gentleman, for the reason that in all his domes- 
tic matters his discipline was such that no man could 
conform to it long, my answer was that I should like 
to live with a disciplinarian in order to acquire a little 
knowledge of that quality, the lack of which has been 
the bane of my whole life. 1 took my own course and 
became so much attached to my employer that the 
feelings of respect and admiration ultimately partook 
of the character of a species of hero worship. During 
the twelve months I lived with Mr. Michie the nation 
was thrown into mourning by the death of the king, 
George the Fourth, who died in Windsor Cottage in 
1830. Some scandal arose from the fact that the Mar- 
chioness of Conynghame, against the popular preju- 



110 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL &EMlKlSCEHCE$ 

dice, persisted in remaining at the cottage to nurse the' 
king till his last breath. There were those who scouted 
the idea of impropriety on the part of the Marchioness. 
Among such I think it proper to make mention that 
Sophia's mother, Mrs. Jones, who lived many years in 
the family of the Marquis of Conynghame and nursed 
their son, Lord Mount Charles, bore testimony that all 
the years she was in the family she never heard the 
breath of scorn advanced against the lady. Mrs. 
Grainger lost her husband while in the service of that 
family, and while yet Mount Charles was in infancy, and 
at the urgent request of the Marchioness, while the 
Marquis was raising a regiment for the service of the 
crown, was induced to remain in an easy and comforta- 
ble position. The widow's weeds were scarcely doffed 
when the serene decorum of Mr. Jones, himself a wid- 
ower and many years butler of the castle, got so 
bewildered by daily contact with the smiling counte- 
nance of the buxom widow that it attracted the atten- 
tion of the Marchioness, and as match-making formed 
one of the most successful features of her ladyship's pas- 
time the opportunity could not be passed unembraced, 
so that in due time the mansion rung with joy at the 
changing a Scottish name for that of a Welsh one. The 
couple desired to leave, but the heads of the house met 
the proposition with an emphatic veto, the marquis say- 
ing: "We must not leave our work half done. With 
your kind co-operation we have accomplished much; a 
little more exertion and we shall secure the complement 
of men necessary, and then think of the glory of pre- 
senting our noble king with as splendid a regiment of 
Irishmen as ever fought under the flag of the three 



of david Johnston. Ill- 

united kingdoms. Stay and return to London with us,, 
and share our laurels, a share to which you are justly* 
entitled. I am not insensible to the popularizing effect 
of what I often deemed an impertinent interference: 
with the maintenance of discipline. I now see that v 
deprived of your active humanity, the recruiting ser- 
geant would have perambulated in vain." 

Mrs. Jones grew gray in the Conynghame family, hut 
not so with Mr. Jones, who, in about a year after their 
marriage, was taken down with a fever that baffled the 
best skill within reach, and died about fifty years of 
age, very much respected. He left his widow, who was 
about forty, some property, which was judiciously in- 
vested, and on the proceeds of which she and her daugh- 
ter Sophia frugally lived. Anything occurring to disturb, 
the relationship between my employer and myself I 
thought impossible, but after twelve months' smooth 
sailing the sunken rock was struck at last. One Satur- 
day evening I left the shop at seven o'clock for Somers 
Town, a good hour's walk, and leaving Sophia at forty- 
five minutes past nine, being fatigued, an hour and a 
quarter was consumed in the transit. I arrived at Mr^ 
Michie's door as the clock at Lambeth Palace was, 
striking eleven. The door was closed. I looked through 
the key-hole and there saw Mr. Michie standing with a 
lighted candle in his hand, which he instantly blew out„ 
I knocked again and again, but no answer. I asked 
through the key-hole if he intended to let me in. Na 
answer. The wind was high and cold, and I then told 
him that it was very bad treatment, but it was the last 
time he should have the power of closing his door 
against me on a Saturday night. I was glad to tako 



112 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND REMINISCENCES 

shelter in a public house in the neighborhood, but sleep 
I could not. In the morning I made my appearance 
for work. We met. Calm generally follows the storm, 
but in this case we had the calm first, then came the 
storm : 

DIALOGUE: "Why did you break the rule last 
night that you have kept so well?" "Sir, I beg your 
pardon ; you broke the rule, and that in a heartless 
manner, not I. But you cannot again act so inhos- 
pitably to me, for I will never make application to get 
into your house again." " Do you mean to say that 
you give up your place ?" " I did not say that, but if 
my situation as your foreman depends on the ridiculous 
Saturday night rule, our relationship terminates next 
Saturday." He seemed chagrined at the result. Each 
was too proud to yield, but in the course of the week 
he seemed more considerate, and on Friday he conde- 
scended to ask if it was my intention to leave on the 
morrow. I told him I had no desire to leave a plaice I 
liked so well. 

" Then, if you'll stay, I will raise your wages two shil- 
lings a week, but of course you must comply with my 
rules." In vain I told him that the lady I visited was 
respectable, and that she was about to become my wife, 
and that the only evening we could be together was 
Saturday, and to be dragged away from one you love 
simply to comply with a rule that should be more dis- 
criminating, and which amounts in my case to cruelty, 
and therefore not entitled to respect. I was sorry to 
perceive that the last remark hurt the feelings of the 
man whom I esteemed as a benefactor. We parted 
kindly, but parted in sorrow. I was gratified to find 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON. 113 

that my leaving was approved of by Mrs. Jones, who 
for the first time inquired into my prospects in the 
immediate future. I informed her that at the death of 
my mother I should be put into possession of two hun- 
dred pounds, but that the interim was gloomy. She 
then, to my astonishment, said that if so small a sum as 
two hundred pounds could be made available of get- 
ting me into business, I could have that amount to- 
morrow. In thanking her for such a munificent offer 
I said, I think it might be well to look around for a few 
days and consult the columns of the Times, A week 
had not elapsed, when the business of Mr. Fair, of 
Holywell street, Westminster, was advertised for sale. 
To ascertain the true value of a business a few days are 
required to investigate. In doing so I had to pass Mr. 
Michie's shop. One day he called me in and asked if 
it were true that I possessed the sum of two hundred 
pounds and that I was taking steps to throw it away ? 
In answer to his inquiries, seeing that he was actuated 
by a desire to serve me, I unbosomed myself. Then 
he gave me to understand the true value of character, 
and was pleased to say that my character, backed with 
the amount of cash in hand, would command the good 
will of any business in town to the extent of a thousand 
pounds. Even now there is in the market a business in 
Peckham worthy of your notice. You may step over 
there now and give my compliments to Mrs. Wighton, 
and offer her seven hundred pounds for the unexpired 
twelve years of her twenty-one years' lease. Entirely 
ignorant of the means to be employed in raising a sum 
so far beyond my present capacity, I ventured a query, 
which was met by, " Do as I tell you, and lose no time. ,, 



114 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

Born to command, his fiat is law. In obedience to this 
mysterious dictum I found myself on Tanner's coach 
to Peckham, and presently in contact with a fine busi- 
ness lady, Mrs. Wighton. 

DIALOGUE: "I am informed the good will of this 
business is for sale. Are you authorized to treat with a 
bidder?" " I am." (The reader is informed that the 
price of a business of this kind in London is mainly 
gauged by the number of sacks of flour consumed per 
week, each sack containing 280 pounds.) " How many 
sacks?" "Eight." " Length of lease?" "Twelve 
years to run." "Price?" "Eight hundred pounds." 
" That's high. Won't you take less ? " "I would rather 
have more," she said ; " but Mr. Wighton put the price 
down low in consequence of the distance between here 
and his new business at Chelsea." "If you will allow 
me to examine your books I will make you an offer." 
" Certainly, there are the books," which I found straight, 
and on the strength of this I offered seven hundred 
pounds. This would not do, and it required all of two 
minutes to dock the price to the extent of fifty pounds, 
and ten more minutes for the cleverest woman in busi- 
ness I had ever met, to handsomely tumble down to my 
terms. 

On reporting progress to my mentor I waited 
instructions for the second act in the drama, but hadn't 
long to wait. "You want to raise five hundred pounds, 
for I take it for granted the terms of your offer are 
cash. You will therefore meet Mr. — — , the miller, at 
the Bridge House Hotel, Blackfriars, to-morrow, at two 
o'clock." Ten minutes anterior to that hour I stood 
before a man in livery, who obsequiously asked my busi- 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON. 115 

ness. On being informed he seated me in a handsome 
parlor, saying Mr. would be present in five min- 
utes. Punctually the presence of Mr. was felt as 

well as seen. 

DIALOGUE: "Your name is David Johnston, I be- 
lieve?" "Yes, sir." "And you want to borrow five 
hundred pounds of me, do you not ? " "I really don't 
know, sir. Mr. Michie requested me to seek an inter- 
view with you, and it is true that I stand in need of 
that sum to enable me to complete the purchase of a 
business in Peckham." "That is just like Michie. 
What security have you to offer for the loan of five 
hundred pounds ? " "I have no security to offer." " If 
I should lend you that sum, at five per cent interest, 
how do you intend to pay it back ? " "As soon as I can 
in order to get rid of the interest." "Any objection to 
leave the lease with me while you are under the 
obligation ? " " None whatever." " Or to insure your 
life for that sum?" "None." "When do you want 
this money ? " " We have arranged with Mrs. Wighton 
to take possession on the day following my wedding, 
which will take place at St. Pancras Church on Mon- 
day next. I should like the money on the day of taking 
possession." "You shall have it. Good-day; I wish 
you joy, and prosperity in business." 

On the following Monday was duly solemnized, in 
New St. Pancras Church, New Road, the rites of mar- 
riage between David Johnston and Sophia Grainger, and 
on the day following we took possession of a home in 
which we spent our honeymoon. I may say, indeed, 
that the cream of my existence was spent in Peckham, 
of which more anon. 



CHAPTER XVII. 



IN 1 83 1 I mingled in the gaping crowd to see the Sailor 
King (in the habit of an admiral) and his Queen 
Adelaide open that noble structure of Scotch granite, 
New London Bridge,planned and constructed by an East 
Lothian man (Sir John Rennie). The scene was one of 
grandeur and magnificence. The Thames was literally 
covered with boats of all kinds and dimensions, each 
having its stem and stern adorned with gay flags and 
streamers, and filled with folks in their richest apparel. 
Among the notables present on that occasion (men 
who had done their state some service, but who are 
now all in their graves) it was easy to distinguish the 
hero of a thousand fights, the Iron Duke, his brother- 
in-arms, the Marquis of Anglesea, Earl Grey, the 
Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Mayor of London, 
accompanied by all the civic officers in official garbs 
and barges, and the representatives of the Admiralty 
and Trinity House, and to complete the scene the old, 
gray, antique Tower of London, all the public buildings 
and the spires of all the churches were adorned with 
flags. In 1832, under the auspices of England's most 
consistent reformer, Lord John Russell, the controversy 
of nearly thirty years on the subject of reform of par- 
liament took the shape of a bill, whose every schedule 
was severely scrutinized in and out of parliament, 
and ultimately became law, followed by similar meas- 

116 



AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES. 117 

ures for Scotland and Ireland, whereby large cities 
were enfranchised and privileged rotten boroughs cut 
off. Then came in quick succession reform in every de- 
partment of the state. First on the list was the repeal 
of the test and corporation acts, which had so long dis- 
graced the annals of British legislation. The strength 
attained by the popular powers by these measures was 
sensibly felt through every class of society. Even the 
king, from outward pressure, felt himself under the dis- 
agreeable necessity of taking into his counsels the dis- 
tinguished leaders of the distasteful opposition, prom- 
inent among whom was Brougham, who, by virtue of 
his appointment as Lord Chancellor, became the keeper 
of the conscience of the very man who at an earlier day 
he stigmatized in open court as a royal slanderer. The 
Duke of Newcastle, too, was practically made to under- 
stand that he could not do as he liked with what he 
was pleased to call his own. His rotten boroughs had 
to share the fate of that which formed the most profit- 
able feature of a ,£60,000 purchase made by Sir 
Mark Wood, who in his place in the Commons had the 
audacity to ask the house if it considered it fair to de- 
prive him of the privilege of returning two members to 
parliament through the instrumentality of a constitu- 
ency of seven voters, some of whom were his own 
servants. About this time the altered tariff pressed 
heavily on the West India interest, and that which the 
philanthropy and eloquence of Clarkson, Wilberforce 
and others failed to do was accomplished easily on 
touching the pocket. The moment that Jamacia 
planters and those of other islands found their estates 
had ceased to be self-sustaining, and their slaves an 



118 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

absolute burden, they were willing to negotiate with 
the government for a bonus. The generosity of Eng- 
land is proverbial, but this virtue is not always exercised 
with prudence. The efforts of the people' of the 
united kingdoms are patent to the world in behalf of 
human freedom. But saddling a willing people with a 
debt of twenty million pounds for an article which had 
outlived its usefulness was, to say the least, sharp prac- 
tice, but dwelling on the price that breaks the galling 
chain of slavery is like looking a gift-horse in the 
mouth. The blessing of freedom is so far beyond all 
estimated value that the lopsided bargain was soon 
overlooked in the idea that now England, said to be 
the land of freedom, is no longer a political falsity. 
Throughout the extensive dominions of Great Britain 
the same immunity exists as pertained for centuries to 
her own sacred soil, which to tread on was to turn links 
of steel to gossamer. The increased power of the pop- 
ular branch of the government began to be felt in high 
places. The sages of Threadneedle street and Leaden- 
hall street, and those of minor monopolies, had to put 
their respective houses in order when the sound of the 
besom of reform was heard at their thresholds. Joint- 
stock banking companies became admissible, and the 
legion of tea-sippers throughout the kingdom soon 
found that to go to London for a continued supply of 
their favorite beverage was no longer necessary. The 
Oriental trade being thrown open, and a free intercourse 
between the principal ports of Great Britain and those 
of the East, had the natural effect of augmenting the 
mercantile marine to an enormous extent, with all its 
concomitant advantages. 



OP DAVID JOHNSTON". 119 

Catholic* emancipation now became the all-engross- 
ing subject for legislation. Its great and able advo- 
cate, Daniel O'Connell, had spoken too freely at a mass 
meeting of his followers, which led to his incarceration 
in Kilmainham jail. This event greatly increased his 
popularity, leading to his election to serve in parlia- 
ment for County Clare. The form of swearing against 
his religion he indignantly resented, whereupon the 
seat for County Clare was declared vacant, and new 
writs issued. Mr. O'Connell was re-elected by the 
same constituency, and the farce in the Commons 
re-enacted, with the additional feature of his declaring 
to the speaker on vacating his seat that the day is not 
distant when he, the speaker, shall be by the voice of 
the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland 
stripped of the power of removing him from this, his 
legitimate place in representing County Clare in Parlia- 
ment. In the meantime O'Connell was gaining ground 
rapidly. He had all the manufacturing towns in England 
with him. Even Scotland, slow to move in that direc- 
tion, was awakened by his eloquence and his happy 
handling of statistics. On one occasion eighty thousand 
people assembled on the Calton Hill, Edinburgh, to lis- 
ten to his powerful arguments on behalf of his down- 
trodden fellow-countrymen. The King in his weak ter- 
giversation had recourse to the assistance of his Tory 
friends, Sir Robert Peel and the Duke of Wellington, 
to form a ministry, which, when formed, astonished the 
world by its humiliating admission that it found two 
grave evils to contend against, the alternative being 
between anarchy and bloodshed on the one hand, and 
on the other Catholic emancipation, and it became 



120 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES. 

the duty of his majesty's ministers to choose the less of 
the two evils. It therefore fell to the lot of the Tory 
party to submit a measure to parliament which stulti- 
fied all the principles involved in the most active political 
and polemical opposition on record. But consistency 
is a jewel which is seldom found ornamenting the 
career of the politician. 

The power of the landed interest now became the 
subject of general investigation. The tax on the work- 
ingman's loaf had to be considered. The trimming 
enactments and sliding scales of the lords of the soil 
had at length nauseated the nation, and under the 
auspices of Richard Cobden, John Bright, Doctor 
Bowring and many others an anti-corn-law league 
was formed at Manchester, whose branches ramified 
throughout the kingdom, and from whose councils 
written arguments by the ton weight were scattered 
broadcast over the land and rewards offered for the 
best essays on effects of the corn law on divers inter- 
ests, one of which deserves particular notice, viz., The 
best written essay on the effects of existing corn laws 
on the farming interests of the land. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



The laird o' Cockpen, he's proud and he's great, 
His mind was ta'en up wi' affairs o' the State, 
He wanted a wife his braw hoose to keep, 
But favor wi' wooin' was fashions to seek. 

THE prize of one hundred guineas for the best 
written essay on the effects of the corn law on 
the interest of the farmer rewarded the pen of Mr. 
Hope, of Fenton Barns, an eminent farmer of East 
Lothian. The eyes of the practical farmers through- 
out the nation were opened by this fine essay, which 
was chosen from among a great number of able com- 
petitors. They were made to see the fallacy so gen- 
erally entertained that the restrictive measures then in 
force were conducive to their interest. At this time 
the meetings of the league were frequently disturbed 
by the chartists, who, for a season, at least, seemed to 
endeavor to un-English themselves by an obstructive 
policy. To illustrate the mode of their petty annoy- 
ance a case may be given. The Peckham branch of the 
league published a desire to convene a meeting in sup- 
port of the movement then under the auspices of 
Richard Cobden. This call was responded to in such 
a manner as to warrant them in securing a very large 
hall for the purpose. They engaged that of the Horns 
Tavern, Kennington Common. The object of the 
meeting was duly advertised in all the London dailies. 
The chair was occupied by the venerable Mr. Warbur- 

121 



122 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

ton, father of the House of Commons, supported by 
a phalanx of excellent talent. The meeting had not 
been well organized when the two main entrances to 
the hall were simultaneously burst open, and the aisles 
filled with fierce, unbidden guests, who made for the 
platform, hustled the old gentleman out of the chair 
and many of the committee (of which I happened 
to be one) from off the elevated platform, and 
coolly proceeded to elect a chairman and secretary 
of their own. They forced upon the meeting a 
programme of resolutions on the five points of the 
charter, whereupon some few, disgusted with the in- 
terruption, rose in the body of the meeting to retire, 
when in a voice far beyond his years Mr. Warburton 
requested every man to keep his seat, saying, "We 
have now a double duty to perform, not only to pass 
these resolutions, placed in the hands of those in whom 
you have long held your confidence, in support of a cause 
for which, with our own money, we hired this 'room, 
but to remain to master this cowardly tumult, and put 
the blush of shame on the countenance of their shame- 
less leaders;" all of which at a late hour was thoroughly 
accomplished. The chartists made sad havoc of their 
cause by counseling overt acts, in the employment of 
physical force, and in impertinent interference with 
other movements. Several of their leaders were incar- 
cerated for intemperate language used at public meet- 
ings. 

The Scottish chartists were under the more temper- 
ate guidance of Sir David Brewster, and when that 
gentleman, at the head of the Scottish chartists, met a 
delegation from England in quest of his co-operation he 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON. 123 

settled the matter in a short speech,, in which he thanked 
their English friends for their courtesy, and directed 
" all those of this great meeting of chartists who are 
of opinion that physical force should be employed 
in the attainment of our object to remain stationary, 
and those who believe that moral suasion only should 
be used as the most efficacious means of accomplish- 
ing all we desire from the legislature will" take their 
position on yonder eminence, whither I shall in a few 
minutes repair myself." The latter section being largely 
in the majority rendered the mission of the delegates 
nugatory. The monster petition to parliament for the 
charter became the theme of the hour. This petition, 
when matured, was to be presented by the leader, 
Fergus O'Connor, in person, backed by thousands in 
procession, for which purpose a monster meeting was 
convened on Kennington Common, and while the gov- 
ernment in its alarm was employing military means to 
intercept the threatened demonstrations in the city 
the more lawless portion of the meeting, to amuse 
themselves, made a raid on the trading people of 
Camberwell, and cleaned out the stores in Rosemary 
Branch lane of a class who could ill afford to lose 
anything, while the more wealthy and better protected 
class were arming themselves to face the raiders. But 
this raid, like the great body of which it formed a dis- 
reputable part, proved a miserable fizzle. The petition 
had to be presented in like manner with those of less 
dimensions, stripped of all semblance of intimidation. 
Since the death of O'Connor we hear but little of the 
charter, nor does it appear necessary, its leading points 
all falling within the range of ordinary legislation. 



124 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

In returning to my desolate home it gives me pleas- 
ure to record the ameliorating influence of Mrs. Ander- 
son, a distant relation, herself chastened by misfortune. 
She was the daughter of Anthony Wilkinson, my 
mother's cousin, who was an eccentric worshiper of the 
antique. When he had acquired enough to retire from 
his fine business (the sign of Prince of Wales' Feathers) 
in Leith street, Edinburgh, he made known to his best 
customer, the Earl of Dalhousie, his desire to live the 
remainder of his days in retirement. 

" Well, Anthony," said his lordship, " since you de- 
cline to make any more guns for us the next best thing 
you can do is to give us the benefit of your company. 
And in order to secure that I will deed over to your 
use forever land enough whereon to build your dwell- 
ing and appurtenances. Come out to Cockpen and see 
for yerselV It is needless to say this offer was grate- 
fully accepted, and on the banks of a little stream in 
the valley which runs between the village of Bonny- 
rigg and the parish kirk o' Cockpen may be seen the 
comfortable villa of Pistol Hall, Anthony Wilkin- 
son, Esq., of that ilk. He had been a widower for 
many years, with two children, Cecilia and James. Mr. 
Anderson had learned his trade and worked at the 
old shop in Leith street until he became too good 
a workman to remain outside of London. Thither he 
started with all he possessed but his heart, which he 
was induced to leave in the good keeping of Cecilia. 
While working journey work in London he acquired 
an enviable reputation as an expert in fowling pieces, 
two of which he made for the celebrated Joe Manton 
to execute an order from the Persian ambassador. The 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON. 125 

finish of those guns was said to be inimitable, and now 
he musters his forces and takes a shop in Cockspur 
street, Charing Cross, and as quick as a Leith smack 
can carry him to the object of his affections, blindly to 
snatch her from a happy home, to be shortly buried (say 
two years) in an obscure garret in the purlieus of West- 
minster, for in such a place I found them. James 
thought that to sell a gun was easier than to make one, 
that the counter was more in unison with his future 
aspirations than the work-bench. Insensible to the 
responsibilities involved in a heavy rent and expensive 
fittings necessary in so prominent a thoroughfare, the 
leap was taken, and it took but a short time to make 
manifest the blunder; but it required two long, anxious 
years to get clear of it, and when he did he not only 
found himself penniless but saddled with debts he 
could not pay. My acquaintance with James Ander- 
son was slight, and I had heard of his eccentricities, and 
to approach a philosopher in adversity is like venturing 
a word with Diogenes in his tub, but I took courage, 
and with the aid of an old-fashioned knocker (my own 
knuckles) found access to an apartment which, if carpet- 
less, was clean, and if innocent of ornament had the ad- 
vantage of elevation. I expected to find a pair of w T oe- 
begones brooding over their losses, instead of which 
they received me cheerfully. Cecy wi' her needle and 
her shears was makin' the auld clais look amaist as weel 
as new, and James was employed painting in oil a 
bunch of grapes, for profit or for pleasure I did not 
dare to ask, but I am inclined to think from subsequent 
droppings, for they were both not only proud but taci- 
turn, that James had taken to the easel for a crust. 



126 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

His theory of the gun business in London was that there 
were but two firms in the metropolis who knew how to 
make a gun. His recent attempt to create a third 
made enemies of the two, and to work for botches, with 
which London abounds, was out of the question. 

I invited them to return the visit. Cecilia came, 
James never, and the chain of circumstances which 
brought Cecy under my roof are, I think, well worth 
recording, as showing the idiosyncrasies of that singular 
couple. An Edinburgh lady, living in one of the fash- 
ionable squares at the west end, who was well ac- 
quainted with Mrs. Anderson, and, indeed, with all the 
Wilkinson family, after considerable trouble in finding 
their abode, much to the annoyance of James, called. 
She had a proposition to make which she hoped would 
be taken in the spirit in which it was meant. " I am," 
she said, " desirous of leaving town for six weeks, and I 
have thought that you, being out of business, might, 
during my stay at Heme Bay, take up your residence 
at my house, and thereby confer a favor on me. Your 
hands you need not soil, as I leave three servants to do 
the work of the house, who shall be instructed to defer 
to Mrs. Anderson as to myself." Alas! how apt we 
are to fall into mischief in the exercise of the best 
attributes of our nature ! The intention in this case to 
a third party was clearly benevolent. The result is the 
separation of two loving hearts, never again in this 
world to meet. In her true womanly heart Cecilia 
thanked her old friend for her kind consideration, and 
would be on hand to see her off on the morrow, and 
turning to James, who was busy attending to his pets, 
consisting of a cage of educated white mice, listening 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON. 127 

to the ladies* conversation as if he heard it not, she 
said : " Jamie, you'll go with me, won't you ? " The lady 
departed, and on the question being repeated he sul- 
lenly answered : "As you make your bed so must you 
lie," and these were the last words she ever heard him 
utter. During the six weeks' painful suspense he never 
made his appearance, neither did he answer her letters, 
and when the lady returned, finding everything satis- 
factory at home, and lamenting the misery of which she 
was the unwitting cause, she offered Mrs. Anderson an 
asylum for life. Her painful position was made known 
to me during the last month of my dying wife, who 
expressed a wish that our child, then two years old, 
should be cared for by Mrs. Anderson, with whom the 
dear soul sympathized. At Sophie's death she became 
the ruling genius of my desolate home, and for sixteen 
months I was beholden to her for kindly care and com- 
panionship ; nor was the cold philosopher forgotten. 
During the whole of that period she diligently kept 
track of his whereabouts, and helped him stealthily, by 
paying his rent and other means. Her father, partially 
acquainted with matters in London, sent her remit- 
tances, which were always in some way shared by her 
unseen husband. 

To relieve my mind I resolved to visit my brother, 
who, tired of idleness, had petitioned the Board of Ord- 
nance for employment. His real friend, the Iron 
Duke, being still the master-general thereof, he had no 
difficulty in obtaining it, and was detailed as master 
gunner to take charge of that formidable stronghold, 
Yarmouth Castle, on the west coast of the Isle of Wight, 
one of Joseph Hume's statistical harp-strings, which to 



128 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

the member for Montrose was such delectable pleas- 
ure annually to play upon that it was dished up as 
a sweet morsel to a fault-finding public. Mr. Hume's 
description of this place is so graphic and so oft re- 
peated that it is only necessary to consult any one 
of his speeches during a period of twenty years to 
supersede the greater expense of ocular demonstra- 
tion. There lay the dismounted guns, two in number. 
There stood the gunner, six feet one in his stockings, 
and his man Friday, and, on a rising ground behind 
what had been the moat, the most comfortable quarter 
of the garrison. Two in number, all told, invitingly 
stood, none the less inviting by fumes emanating from 
the spitted hinder part of a south-downer playing 
among the salivary glands of one whose appetite has 
been whetted by the sea breeze up to an activity which 
threatened destruction to a less savory dish than that 
which was now in preparation for us. Their hospitality 
to me had undergone a marvelous change for the better. 
The sailor boy who in Well Close Square was hurried 
off to lie among ropes in the forecastle of the Trusty, 
was now assigned the king bed in the mansion ; but 
everything good in the house failed to be good enough 
to induce me to prolong my stay, which was length 
ened several days beyond my original intention. The 
family consisted of my brother, his wife, and Mary, 
an adopted child, the daughter of an old comrade who 
was slain in battle in the island of Ceylon. This man 
on the eve of the fight had a presentiment of his fall, 
and prevailed on Alexander in that event to adopt his 
only child Mary, a promise religiously carried out, 
even to the grave, and a finer specimen of true grati- 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON. 129 

tude than that which was found in the life of Mary- 
would be difficult to find. She had had several offers 
of marriage, but never could make her mind up to quit 
the family circle of her benefactor. The world is not 
all so ungrateful as some would have us believe, and 
now, as home again I turn my steps, my wounds are 
felt to open up afresh, but just in proportion to the 
coldness of my own hearth did I find the popular sen- 
timent inflamed. In fact, old Camberwell not only ap- 
peared to be but was aroused to fever heat. The 
hackneyed simile of the toad under the harrow, rough 
as it is, falls short of the condition into which the 
officers of the parish had recklessly plunged themselves. 
Derogatory sentences were posted on the walls and 
thrown broad-cast over the three divisions of the parish, 
such as, " Down with .pretended reformers," " Away 
with Scottish economists," " Let the election of Easter 
be revised," and many other disparaging remarks, all of 
which were so richly perfumed with the roses of the hills 
that the olfactory nerves of the solid rate-payer could 
not fail to detect the quarter from which they emanated. 
The prime mover of these distasteful radical measures 
complained of was Mr. Daniel Triquet, overseer for 
Camberwell proper. This gentleman was a clerk in the 
will office of the Bank of England, aided by David 
Johnston, the baker in Peckham, and Joseph Haines, 
Esq., Dulwich. For the first time in many years the 
representatives of the respective districts of Camber- 
well were perfectly unanimous in desiring to undertake 
a long-needed reform in the parochial rent-roll, whereon 
should be based an assessment for all the wants of the 
parish in an equable ratio. 
9 



130 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES. 

To reach the intrinsic value of property which is in 
the market, continually improving, is easily attained, 
but to get at the true value of that which is never 
known to change hands, and which had been assessed 
at a remote period, when money was more valuable, we 
found to be attended with difficulty, requiring the 
whole of our second year in office to accomplish, and 
after a residence of many years in this delightful com- 
munity it is gratifying to reflect that I failed to meet a 
parishioner who was prepared to assert that the battle 
was fought in vain. A few words in the next chapter 
on this topic appears necessary to enable the reader to 
comprehend the nature of this controversy. 



CHAPTER XIX. 



" That thin partitions do divide 
The bounds where good and ill reside; 
That naught is perfect here below, 
But bliss still bordering upon woe." 

THE parish of St. Giles, Camberwell, in the metro- 
politan borough of Lambeth (which borough 
returns two members to parliament), is situated in the 
county of Surrey, and is one of the richest suburbs of 
London. The parish contained in 1832 a population of 
about 50,000, which was healthily increasing. The parish 
is divided into three parts, viz., Camberwell proper, the 
liberty of Peckham and the hamlet of Dulwich. In 
the last-named village is the famous college of Allyn 
the play-actor, who built and endowed it for the sup- 
port and education of decayed persons of his name. 
In this college is the Bodleian gallery, in which there 
are some splendid paintings of the old masters. In 
Peckham stands Marlborough House, the ancient seat 
of the hero of Blenheim, with all his deeds emblazoned 
on the walls, in good preservation. The residence of 
Nell Gwynn, of Charles II notoriety, was made to give 
way for the Surrey canal. Of the beauty of the to- 
pography of Camberwell it would be difficult to say 
too much in its praise. It is said " Sweet Auburn " was 

131 



132 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMIKISCEKCES 

written in Goldsmith House, Peckham. Be that as it 
may, I know there is a pane of glass in one of the 
windows of that house with his name, said to have been 
written by himself. The topography of the parish is 
delightfully undulating, and rich in foliage. The hills, 
known by the names of Grove, Champion, Dulwich, 
Norwood, Forest, and Sydenham, abound in splendid 
scenery. Several views from these eminences are ob- 
tained of the metropolis. The valley of the Thames, 
the wealds of Kent and the immediate surroundings are 
well worthy of a visit. But in speaking of my cozy, 
happy home I must not forget the passing events of 
the then extraordinary period. The political arena of 
1829 assumed a state of fermentation which drifted 
rapidly into an agitation which in some instances 
threatened damage to the peace of the community. 
The iron horse had made his bow, making manifest at 
once his power to bless and to destroy. At the great 
and world-wide important event of opening the railway 
between Manchester and Liverpool, the nation was 

shocked and dreadfully saddened by the destruction of 

• 

one of our greatest and most consistent reformers of 
the period. Mr. Huskisson, who, with the Duke of 
Wellington, was deputed to represent the government 
at the opening, was killed on the track by an engine 
near Liverpool. He was president of the board of 
trade at the time and a great advocate of free trade, 
and was mainly instrumental in lowering the duties on 
the silken fabrics of France so as to bring them within 
the reach of the common people of England, to the 
annoyance of the Spitalfield silk weavers who carried 
their petition in procession to the House of Commons 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON. 133 

against his innovating measures. Their mistaken 
notions were unmoved by his eloquence, but their sub- 
sequent experience proved the soundness of his prin- 
ciples when their periodical poverty had given place to 
an increased activity to their shuttles. The reforming 
spirit was more susceptible of feeling at this time 
than to action, each heading looming up and claim- 
ing priority of the popular process which the acute 
angles of all measures are destined to undergo prior to 
becoming law. Reform in parliament became the 
leading topic of the day. Men were now inspired by 
reasonable expectations of a speedy accomplishment of 
that for which they had struggled for a period of 
twenty-eight years, and for which they had figured at an 
early day in the most contemptible minorities. We 
had now in 1830 at the nominal head of affairs a re- 
forming king (William the Fourth, the popular sailor 
king), under whose auspices there were those in high 
places who in the spirit of their dreams began to feel a 
change. Many who, under George, were stanch advo- 
cates for leaving all things just as they were, began 
under William to relax. 

Others, again, assumed the position of leaders in a 
cause against which they had fought for years. In 
1830 and 183 1 the spirit of the people rose to a danger- 
ous pitch. In all the large towns immense assemblages 
of the middle and working classes convened, carrying 
flags bearing inscriptions, some of which were couched 
in terms more in the attitude of threats than that of 
petitions. Every city, town and hamlet had its reform 
society, from whom emanated spirited petitions, not 
always guarded in phraseology. Under the pressure from 



134 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

without a bill, under the auspices of that grand old 
political reformer, Lord John Russell, was intro- 
duced into the commons. After every schedule of the 
bill had been severely scrutinized, both in and out of 
parliament, it was accepted by the people, and the bill, 
the whole bill, and nothing but the bill, became the 
national demand from Land's End to John o' Groat's. 
But the king, intimidated at the aspect of affairs, made 
efforts to retract, dismissed his reforming minister, 
tried to form a cabinet of the leaders of the opposi- 
tion, which proved impracticable, and thereby made 
shipwreck of his golden popularity. So much so that on 
his way to and from his palace at Windsor he found 
himself under the necessity of taking a by-road to escape 
the filthy missiles being thrown at his carriage, showing 
the instability of the popular applause. 1830 was 
an eventful year. George IV departed this life after ten 
years of misrule. It gave a throne to Louis Phillippe, 
obscurity to Charles X, and an addition to our little 
family at Peckham. In the revolution effecting the 
changes in France the whole world was dazzled at the 
noble defense of order made by La Fayette against a 
host of fire-brands. I was so taken with the bravery 
of that hero that I was desirous of naming our infant 
son after him, but on our way to Camberwell church to 
get a name, my wife, being a true English woman, 
scouted the idea of naming a child of ours after a 
Frenchman. I felt cheap and vanquished, and gave the 
choice up to her, and I am sure she found a much less 
worthy name in my own than in that of the hero of my 
choice, but I had disfranchised myself in the premises 
and yielded to the inevitable. At this particular junct- 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON". 135 

ure all Europe seemed convulsed. Thrones toppled, 
dynasties arose and reigning families were ruthlessly 
shelved. Even these little republics, called parishes in 
England, where self-government really exists, were not 
exempt from the prevailing turmoil, and our quiet rural 
parish of Camberwell had to come in for its share. 
The clerical or bookkeeping part of the parish was 
nominally transacted by Mr. Gilbert, a prominent lawyer 
in the city, whose income enabled him to keep up a high- 
toned establishment in Camberwell. For his services 
as vestry-clerk he received four hundred pounds per 
annum, while Mr. Pool, the assistant vestry-clerk, on 
whose shoulders fell the real burden of the work, en- 
joyed a salary of seventy pounds a year whereon to 
support himself, wife and seven children. The child- 
less Gilbert, moving in the highest circles of society, be- 
ginning to think that an additional two hundred to his 
four hundred would be acceptable, mooted the idea to 
his bosom friend, the vicar, and leading men of the in- 
fluential class of parishioners in which he moved. The 
hill-tops teemed with the desire, but how shall we be 
able to counteract that abominable spirit of reform 
which seems to transform our trading and working classes 
from willing coadjutors to vile obstructionists? The 
vote in our favor can only be obtained by early attend- 
ance and filling the hall with our friends. But the 
move was anticipated by the despised reformers, and 
the audience proved too much imbued with the spirit 
of reform for their scheme. Under the auspices of 
John George Storey, vicar, the churchwardens and 
overseers of the poor of St. Giles, Camberwell, the 
meeting was convened. I was induced by neighbors 



136 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

to attend that meeting, at which John George Storey 
took the chair. The object of the special meeting 
was somewhat hastily explained, and a motion to 
augment the salary of the vestry clerk two hundred 
pounds per annum was as hastily moved and seconded. 
Looking around in vain to those who had urged me to 
accompany them in the spirit of opposition to the 
measure, and somewhat nettled at the supine appearance 
of my neighbors, at the moment the vicar was about to 
submit the motion to the vote I made myself heard 
in the crowded hall, apologizing for so young a parish- 
ioner trespassing upon the notice of so great an assem- 
bly. I said that if my opinion of the sum of four 
hundred pounds a year was too inflated I had to 
attribute it to the fact of being a native of a part of 
the world where money is rendered valuable by its 
scarcity. " I therefore move as an amendment that Mr. 
Gilbert receive a vote of thanks for the able manner 
in which he has served the parish in the capacity of 
vestry clerk, and that he be invited to retain that 
position at his present salary of four hundred pounds 
per annum." This amendment was seconded by a sten- 
torian voice at the opposite side of the hall, who, 
seeing the unwillingness on the part of the vicar to put 
the amendment, and at the time urging me to with- 
draw it, elbowed his way through the crowded audi- 
ence, introduced himself as Mr. Brett, whom I after- 
ward found to be an eminent attorney of the old Kent 
Road, saying," I seconded your amendment, and I fear 
you are about to lose it. According to appearances we 
shall be able to carry the vote. All now depends 
on your pressing it to an issue. " Being entirely igno- 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON. 137 

rant of parliamentary rules I took courage from his 
support, and to the chagrin of the chair pressed the 
amendment, which was carried by a very large major- 
ity. The effect of this vote throughout the parish was 
unprecedented, and infuriated for a time the proud 
priest and his party. The cool, temperate daring of a 
class they were wont to despise challenged their 
respect and paved the way to a wonderful change in 
parochial management. On the following Easter Tues- 
day, the day on which all the parish officers are elected 
for the year ensuing, in due order of business the elec- 
tion of overseer of the poor for the Liberty of Peckham 
came before the vestry, and Mr. Brett arose and said 
" that inasmuch as the parish of Camberwell stands 
indebted to a comparative stranger in that part of the 
parish for the judicious part he took in a recent con- 
troversy, I therefore move that David Johnston be 
overseer of the poor of St. Giles, Camberwell, during 
the ensuing year, ending in Easter, 1831," which, to 
the astonishment of all present, was seconded by Mr. 
Gilbert and unanimously carried. Thus was I honored 
by my fellow-parishioners in the receipt of the highest 
gift within the compass of their power, and all from a 
mere accident, not from any credit of my own. Oh, 
for the buoyant happiness of those too few days ! To 
be lifted from a miserable life of servile drudgery into 
a snug, sweet home at the age of twenty-six years, 
in robust health ; to be in communion with the 
woman you dearly love, and with whom you have been 
acquainted for eight years ; to be blessed with a prom- 
ising son ; to have your credit well established ; to 
possess the confidence of your fellow-creatures, and all 



138 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES. 

your prospects brightening, must be felt to be appre- 
ciated. But such felicity seldom falls to the lot of 
man. Indeed, I have been led to look upon happy 
coincidences as the harbinger of evil, an idea which 
might have found its origin in the dreadful ordeal 
which I was destined to undergo so close upon the 
heels of the attainment of all that I could wish. My 
wife's confinement had not been attended by any- 
thing like severity ; still, her continued weakness gave 
rise to uneasiness, and shortly to alarm. At the close 
of the nurse's term Sophia's mother became her constant 
attendant, and under the auspices of the physician, Dr. 
Bissett, and her own loving heart, soothed the pillow of 
the darling patient until her last breath, which fatal 
event transpired on the seventeenth day of September, 
1832. The grave in which her remains are deposited 
is in old Camberwell churchyard, pointed out by a 
headstone on which is inscribed the following lan- 
guage, quoted from Sterne, and garbled to suit the sex : 

She was — words are wanting to say what ! 
Think what a wife, mother, friend, should be, 
And she was that ! 



CHAPTER XX. 

A TRIP TO THE GREEN ISLE. 

IN the summer of this year my wife's maternal uncle, 
Richard Clements, overjoyed at the recovery, by a 
simple process, of his hearing, proposed that he and I 
should take a trip to Ireland. No sooner mooted than 
might have been found Uncle Clements and I in the 
yard of the Swan-With-Two-Necks inn, Lad lane, Lon- 
don, surmounting the Tally Ho, the four-in-hand coach 
for Holyhead, the grandest of all modes of transit. 
Over the finest roads and through the richest scenery 
in the world we reach the Black Bull Bull-ring, Bir- 
mingham, to experience the old-fashioned landlord's 
trick of delaying the meal until the coach is just ready 
to start, leaving the hungry traveler no time to do 
justice to his viands. In taking a passing peep at 
Peeping Tom, on our way through the fine old town of 
Coventry, we soon arrive at the ancient city of Shrews- 
bury, made famous by the questionable veracity of 
Falstaff. Through the neat little town of Oswestry we 
began to realize that masterpiece of civil engineering 
of Mr. Telfer; his road from this point to Bangor, 
through the romantic scenery of North Wales ; his 
bridge across the Menai straits, and his road through 
Anglesea to Holyhead, being a work at once of beauty 
and utility combined. Crossing the channel we experi- 
enced rough weather, and entering the then unfinished 

139 



140 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

harbor of Kingston, and finding that, in consequence 
of a promised grand regatta on the morrow, the hotels 
were all occupied, we sheltered (not slept) in sorry ac- 
commodation. On our way thither we were fortunate 
enough to have a taste of genuine Hibernianism worthy 
of remark. My uncle objecting to pay what he deemed 
an overcharge for carrying our portmanteaus, the quick 
reply was," Shure, haven't I been waiting for yez for the 
last two hours in this cowld night ?" Figure to your- 
self a hackman charging his fare in proportion to the 
time his vehicle has been idle on the stand. It was a 
kind of eating-house wherein we had to sojourn for 
the night, and having resolved to witness the regatta 
we ordered breakfast, whereupon the landlord, with a 
soiled cloth over his left arm, answered the knock on 
the table. 

" What d'ye plaze to want, gintlemen, for break- 
fast ?" 

" What have you for the morning meal? ,, 
He then glibly dealt out a long list of good things, 
the burden being chickens and ham, which he repeated 
and transformed several times in the course of his 
verbal bill of fare. We then ordered chickens and ham, 
with tea, for which, with all the patience that keen appe- 
tites could muster, for three-quarters of an hour we 
waited in vain. A boy who was left in charge coolly 
informed us that his master had gone to his stall at the 
harbor and taken the chickens and ham with him. 
"Ah," said my pawky uncle, "this comes from too 
prompt payment. Had we held on to the price of his 
beds for awhile our fast might have been broken in 
comparative comfort. " The weather for an hour was 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON. 141 

bright and clear, long enough to feast our vision on 
one of the most beautiful sights I ever beheld. The 
Bay of Dublin at all times is one of nature's beauty 
spots, but on this occasion the scene was made enchant- 
ing by the numberless yachts of the three united king- 
doms floating on its tranquil bosom, all busy in 
preparation for the trial of speed on which they were 
about to start. A gentle breeze from the north rippled 
the surface of the bay, bringing with it the harbinger 
of disappointment. A small but growing cloud kissed 
the summit of the hill of Howth, giving to the weather- 
wise unheeded warning of a soaking day. Nor was 
suspense of long duration. With the changing speed 
of a kaleidoscope the brilliant morning was embraced 
in gloom. The glorious bay, with its busy burden, was 
no longer to be seen, neither could the outline of the 
distant hill be drawn, and then the rain — I have heard 
of it raining in Glasgow, and tasted of rain in the 
Devil's Wash-Basin, a local title given to the city of 
Manchester, and both cities are proverbial for the extent 
of their rainfall — but the fall of rain that day in Kings- 
ton would be hard to surpass. The fine morning had 
emptied Dublin of its heterogeneous masses, who 
poured into the site of the new harbor at Kingston 
by the thousand, and a crowd more mixed never char- 
acterized the annual Derby day at Epsom. One 
peculiarity I noticed which goes to distinguish the 
western gathering from that of the east, namely, the 
use of the umbrella. In England the umbrella is sup- 
posed to be the property of the individual. In Ireland 
it is public property. Hoisting one of those useful 
commodities has the effect of attracting all those 



142 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

within sight of the holder who might be less fortunate, 
giving rise to the most ludicrous scenes, in one of 
which my jolly uncle was made to figure as a center. 
He had placed his back against a huge block of granite 
to shelter him from the pelting storm, and to increase 
his protection inflated his new bit of silk for the first 
time, which was no sooner done than a round dozen of 
all sorts of people laid claim to share the privilege with 
that of the owner. At first the kind old soul evinced 
no dislike to this singular proceeding, so new to him. 
A Dublin belle of apparent respectability, elegantly 
attired in satin, but woefully drenched with the rain, 
had placed her back against his rotund person, afford- 
ing the old gentleman pleasure in the exercise of his 
gallantry in sheltering so fine a lady from the merciless 
storm. 

" But pleasures are like poppies spread, 
You seize the flower, the bloom is shed; 
Or like the snow-flake on the river, 
A moment white, then gone forever." 

Less welcome were the dozen ragged, rollicking 
followers of the lady's example, who set up a rude, 
noisy bantering, many of their jokes made to appeal 
to the risibles of the ungainly crowd at Mr. Clements' 
expense, making his confined situation anything but 
pleasant. Retreat in the rear was cut off by reason of 
the granite ; the obstacles in front were nearly as im- 
movable. The old gentleman was very sensitive to 
odor, and the packing of so many saturated human 
beings so assailed his olfactories that his plight became 
unbearable, and with one effort of his burly body he 
freed himself of his untoward incumbrance. On our 



OF DAVID JOHNSTOK. 143 

way to the viandless eating-house for our satchels I 
confess to the morbid satisfaction of seeing our host of 
the empty platter perhaps too severely punished for 
the trick he played on us as strangers. He had im- 
provised a square platform with a pole at each corner. 
At the tops of each upright was fastened an unwashed 
sheet to keep the sun from his stock in trade. The 
sheet now, the sunshine having turned to rain, formed 
a leaky reservoir of the superincumbent downfall, and 
the unsold viands, even the veritable chickens and 
ham, uninvitingly lay exposed to the copious drip- 
pings of the extended sheet above, which from its in- 
verted rotundity threatened to burst every minute. 
Bidding adieu to the prolonged scene of discomfort 
we sought and found its opposite (after a short ride of 
seven or eight miles over the only railroad which Ire- 
land could at that date boast of) in the Victoria Hotel, 
Westland Row, Dublin, the landlord, Mr. Gilbert, a 
native of Droitwich, England, who for genuine hospi- 
tality could not be excelled. In addition to the home 
comforts of his well-managed house, he put himself to 
considerable expense and trouble on our behalf in do- 
ing the lions of the city and environs, — the park, the 
college, the custom house, the four courts, the castle 
the pigeon house, the cathedral, even through the 
romantic glen called the Dargle (where Grattan was wont 
to practice his parliamentary speeches), to the falls 
of Powerscourt, in the Wicklow mountains, and other 
places of interest. Among other curiosities in Dublin 
I may mention that of a new way to pay old debts. 

Mr. Mc held a good situation in London for some 

years, during which time he and his family resided near 



144 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL EEMINISCEKCES 

to us in Peckham. We got to be on intimate terms, 
when, losing his berth, he retired to his native Dublin, 
leaving me his note for ^30 borrowed money. Think- 
ing to dovetail a little business with pleasure, I put 

forth an effort to collect this trifle, as Mr. Mc was 

pleased to call it. I had no trouble in finding my 
man: would that I could say so of my claim. We were 
introduced to good society, one gentleman a promi- 
nent lawyer, his wife's brother. We were cordially 
invited to spend a week at his villa in the beautiful 
village of Darndale, nestling in the lee of the hill of 
Howth. A passing visit had to suffice, and we were 
for two days handsomely entertained in town, which 
doubtless cost double the amount of the debt, but the 
de'il a word was uttered in regard to the liquidation of 
the debt, nor has a figure been altered in my ledger 
from that frothy period to the present day. In speak- 
ing of the characteristics of the people of the sister isle 
it would be presumptuous on my part to venture an 
opinion on a subject which has baffled the skill of 
matter-of-fact England for seven hundred years. Can 
it be that matter-of-fact measures are unsuited for the 
governance of a poetical people? A nation susceptible 
of wrath by the color of your handkerchief is not likely 
to be satisfied with mere bread and butter, and a ser- 
mon preached in the chapel of Dublin Castle, however 
orthodox and sublime, will fail to compensate the mis- 
chief effected by the employment of party colors in 
Stephens Green. But this savors of the spirit of 
opinion, for which I ask the reader's pardon. And now, 
sister isle, adieu. Turn not away from us. The under- 
current of the British heart flows toward you, albeit 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON. 145 

the surface may tend to obscure the fact. There is 
strength in unison, weakness in division. Mills of deity 
grind slowly. Every grievance shall be removed. 
Patient endurance will win. Let the Celt and the 
Saxon be reconciled, that they may yet sit down in 
harmony together, is the earnest wish of the neutral 
subscriber. 
10 



CHAPTER XXI. 



" Mark my fall and that that ruin'd me." 

Shakespeare* 

IT seems that the most difficult lesson for a prosper- 
ous man to learn is to know when to eschew specu- 
lation; to be content pursuing the even tenor of 
well doing and ever able to fortify the ear against siren 
assaults which savor of ambition, how difficult the task ! 
The ease which attended the raising of the necessary 
funds to make me a freeholder of Surrey, which (" up 
higher yet, my bannet ! ") entitled me to a vote for the 
county and to mingle with the lords of the soil at 
Croyden on election day, doubtless led to a species of 
inflated pleasures, but at the same time proved the 
opening wedge to a train of action which involved 
me in the short space of a few years in utter ruin, and 
led to the dreadful ordeal of emigration with a family of 
nine souls, at the age of forty-five years, to a distant land. 
My purchase was part of the estate of Esquire Batten, 
of Yeovil, Somerset, banker, who for some years, on 
his annual visit to London to collect his rents, enjoyed 
some comfort in my cozy little parlor, and never failed 
to advise me to purchase the property, consisting of 
my own premises, extending a long way back, a grocer's 
shop next door, and eight small cottages behind in an 
alley. He remarked on one occasion that he was "get- 
ting too far advanced in life for this periodical journey, 

146 



AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES. 147 

and I have experienced nothing but confusion in trust- 
ing to agents for the collection of rents, and therefore 
I have come to the determination of bringing the 
whole of my London property to the hammer. It 
will be to your advantage to take the property for 
,£1,200, and I shall make the payments easy." I thanked 
him for his proposition, but doubted my capacity to 
furnish the means, and before he received a penny of 
the purchase money the title deeds of the freehold were 
placed in my hands, thus entitling me to a vote for the 
borough of Lambeth. Such a business transaction I 
never heard of before nor since, and I have been led to 
believe, from the indifferent manner in which he received 
the first installment of ^400, that he was careless as to 
whether I paid him or not, and when he received the 
last installment he said that when Batten's terrace was 
sold to be at the sale and bid for the end house next to 
my alley as a means of securing the future advantage of 
the property I had just bought. I subsequently found 
his advice profitable, but the general sale being left in 
the hands of a broker the purchase-money had to be 
forthcoming — ^700 within seven weeks of the date of the 
sale. Thus I was drawn into a dilemma which was likely 
to prove fatal to all my good fortune, and from which I 
could only be extricated by paying the cash at the given 
time. I wrote to the old gentleman, saying that 1 had 
taken his advice in buying the house in Batten's terrace, 
and should be in Yeovil on the following week for some 
further advice in the premises. In two days I received 
notice from an unknown hand that Mr. Batten was too 
ill to see any one, particularly on business. I then 
wrote to Jane Turpin, a daughter of my half-brother, 



148 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL EEMINISCEXCES 

Alexander, by a former wife, explaining my untoward 
position. She sent, to my agreeable astonishment, 
^400, which left me an easy task to make up the 
remainder among my friends. My mind considerably 
relieved, setting my house in order for a new presiding 
genius became the order of the day. 

At this time I am beholden to my friend Mr. Webb, 
of High Holborn, for an introduction to Miss Mary 
Ann Wheeler, whose father was a Mr. Thomas Wheeler, 
portrait painter, of Regent street, St. James. I ad- 
dressed that gentleman by mail, asking permission to 
visit his daughter. His answer was couched in cautious 
terms, requiring references. I sent him to Mr. Michie, 
whose testimony was deemed satisfactory, and which 
opened the doors to a happy home, in which I spent 
many a delightful evening in conversation and music. 
David, my first and only son by my former wife, was 
now four years old, and I placed him under the care of 
relations, Mr. and Mrs. Graham, of the grammar 
school, Haddington. His grandmother, Mrs. Jones, 
accompanied me to Scotland with him. While there 
we made a little tour up the Firth to Stirling by the 
first steamer that sailed in these waters; thence by 
coach to lock sixteen, on the Forth and Clyde canal; 
thence by canal to Glasgow. Stopping in that great 
mart a few days, we sailed down the Clyde to Greenock, 
Dunoon and Rothesay ; back again to Glasgow, and 
thence by coach to Edinburgh ; then again to London 
by a Leith smack. We found Mrs. Anderson well, but 
somewhat dumpy. Dame Rumor had me married, or 
about to be, and it was a downright shame to keep it 
from her. 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON. 149 

On the 4th day of May, 1834, at St. James* church, 
Piccadilly, Miss Mary Ann Wheeler became Mrs. David 
Johnston. Now I have a volume to write about that 
lady, but am tongue-tied on the subject, for here she is 
by my side on the Pacific coast, in 1883, mingling her 
hopes with mine to have the pleasure of our golden 
wedding, and she hates the semblance of flattery. 
So, loving peace, mum's the word. On our wedding- 
day we, accompanied by a few friends, dined at the 
Star and Garter, Richmond Hill, one of England's 
loveliest spots, and which, looking toward Windsor, 
is furnished, at this season for rich beauty, with one 
of the finest landscapes in the world, and, turning 
homeward, under our own vine and fig-tree in the 
pleasant village of Peckham spent the honeymoon 
and fourteen years of our lives. It was natural to sup- 
pose that Mrs. Anderson would be incommoded by the 
new arrangement, but to the inevitable she handsomely 
yielded and stayed a few days with Mrs. Jones, who 
also visited my wife and became attached to her. Thus 
we were all made comparatively happy, but the parting 
scene was not all unfelt ; my own vision might have 
been so impaired by surplus moisture as to disentitle it 
to respect, but I fancied I could detect a wee bit globule 
struggling to escape from the philosophical eye of Mrs. 
Anderson, who carried with her my heartfelt thanks 
for the past and unfeigned good wishes for her future 
welfare. Oh! how sad to think of so noble a mind 
being left to brood over her troubles alone, hopelessly 
deserted by one who had sworn to cherish and protect 
her while life lasts. Mrs. Jones, my benefactress, 
deprived by death of nearly all that makes life desirable, 



150 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

craving in her loneliness for society, arranged with Mrs. 
Anderson to share her dwelling in Islington until she 
should carry out her intentions of going home to her 
father's house at Cockpen, which, after a considerable 
time, she did, and on my last visit to Scotland I had 
the pleasure of a chat with her on past events. What 
became of James Anderson I never knew and scarcely 
cared. 

An event happened in the village which caused some 

sensation about this time. John Thomas , plumber 

and house painter, High street, had four children by a 
former wife and four by his present wife. The father 
of the first wife died, leaving ^1,000 in the 3 per cent 
consols for the benefit of her children when they re- 
spectively came of age. The eldest son, John, was a 
wild, drunken youth, who in one of his paroxysms of 
rage threatened to stab his father. He then went to 
sea, and at the close of his then distant voyage would 
be twenty-one years of age and of course come in 
for his £2 50. Now his father, dreading his presence 
on his return, and believing that the possession of this 
money would only tend to increase the evil habits of 
the boy in an unsound state of mind, bethought himself 
of intercepting his obtaining it, and after much cogita- 
tion in an evil hour forged his co-trustee's name, a 

Mr. , made application for the consols through 

the medium of a broker, and was a prisoner in the 
compter, all in the same day. Not being acquainted 

with Mr. , and decidedly opposed to him in politics, 

I was not a little surprised to receive a letter on the 
following morning from his legal adviser, Mr. Gregson, 
requesting an interview at the prison. My better feel- 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON. 151 

ings prompting, I yielded to his desire and repaired to 
the scene of anguish. A description of this meeting 
lies beyond my power: to depict the condition of the 
deeply contrite prisoner, the painful distress of his 
young wife, with a baby at her breast, and that of his 
daughter Emma, who would accompany her stepmother 
to the jail. Even Mr. Gregson evinced feeling of dis- 
tress, and addressing himself to me, said : " We have sent 
for you, Mr. Johnston, to ask you to do an act of kind- 
ness to this miserable family, the head of which has 
brought ruin upon it by an act which would a short 
time ago have cost him his life. Happily, the law of 
late has been humanized, but the punishment awaiting 
the crime of forgery is necessarily still severe, namely, 
transportation to a penal settlement, the maximum 
being for life and the minimum for seven years. Now, 
with a view to shorten the term as much as possible, I 

have advised Mr. to throw himself on the mercy 

of the court by pleading guilty of the crime with which 
he will in all probability be charged, and I am glad 
he has consented to do so. According to law his real 
estate on his conviction will be confiscated to the crown, 
and his wife and family thereby reduced to pauperism. 
To obviate this additional calamity we have taken the 
liberty of asking your aid. I have prepared a deed of 

trust and guardianship to be subscribed by Mr. , 

giving the power to act into the hands of any person 
he thinks proper to appoint, and all parties concerned 
join me in requesting you to be kind enough to assume 
the responsibility for the sake of the suffering family. 
The duties will be simply to collect the rents of eight 
houses in Hill street, Peckham, quarterly, and out of 



152 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

the proceeds pay weekly to Mrs. such allowance as 

the creditors of Mr. shall deem meet for the 

maintenance of the family, the balance to accumulate 
enough to warrant a dividend, which you shall call 
whensoever the cash in hand is sufficient to justify the ex- 
pense." To the proposition I found it impossible to say 
nay. Nor was the document completed any too soon, 
for the trial came off earlier than was anticipated, the 
poor man received his sentence of seven years' trans- 
portation beyond the seas, and I found myself in charge 
of his wife and seven children during all the long years 
of his absence. My wife invited Emma to live with 
us, which she did for many years. The compassion 
and sympathy of the neighbors ran high in favor of the 
poor fellow, now he was condemned, many believing 
that he never intended to appropriate the money to 
himself, and that he spoke the truth when he said that 
the only motive which prompted the perpetration of 
the crime was an earnest desire to check the downward 
progress of his first-born son. Imbued with similar 
notions, and believing the severity of the punishment 
indicated a lack of discrimination in the case, being 
strengthened by the popular sentiment, I conceived 
the idea of keeping him by a well-timed effort at home. 
I first went to the seat of the learned leisure of the 
vicar and asked him to head a petition to the prime 

minister in behalf of John Thomas , with a view of 

retaining him in England during his term of punish- 
ment. " I cannot sign such a petition," the vicar said. 
" Will you be kind enough to enlighten me with your 
reasons ? " " As vicar of the parish of St. Giles, Camber- 
well, as justice of the peace, as a conservator of the 



OF DAYID JOHNSTON. 153 

law, I cannot sanction any movement that is contrary 
to the course of law." " I hope you will pardon me, but 
you appear to mistake the object of my mission, which 
is by no means to defeat justice, but to temper justice 
with mercy." Most of the justices of the peace refused 
to sign until the vicar headed the petition. Failing 
with the high priest I went to the poorly paid curate, 
who supported a family on a miserable pittance, Rev. 
H. W. C. Hyde, who readily headed the list ; the nota- 
bles of Camberwell quickly followed, and the petition 
was in two days swollen to an enormous magnitude. I 
then went to the neighboring parish of Lewisham, 

where had been in business in his early years. The 

rector of the parish spoke well of the poor convict, 
and commenced a list that everybody signed that I 
could reach in the short space of time I had to spare. 
On the following morning, on my way to the Home 
Office with the enormous list of sympathizers, who 
should take a seat next to me in the omnibus but my 
prince of antagonists, the vicar, who greeted me kindly, 
and was pleased to express his admiration of my inde- 
fatigability and pleasure at the success with which it 
was met, and even hoped that my efforts would not 
be thrown away, but have the desired effect. In fact, 
he was so genial as to lead me to suppose that he 
only required asking to induce him to sign the docu- 
ment. It was his place, I thought, to lead off. Fol- 
lowing this supposition a train of thought set in. What 
if he should the second time refuse ? We had wonder- 
fully well succeeded without his aid : let him slide, and he 
slid. A cab soon brought me to Downing street, West- 
minster, where the government buildings are situated, 



154 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

wherein the executive affairs of England and her world- 
wide colonies are transacted. I had, in the canvass of 
the first two general elections of reformed parliaments, 
taken an active part, more particularly in behalf of our 
popular member, Benjamin Hawes, Jr., who in the 
interim had been elevated to the under-secretaryship 
of the colonies. Leaving my bulky parcel with the 
liveried porter, I was ushered into the waiting hall of the 
Colonies office, which was filled nearly to crowding by 
representatives from all parts of the world, many in 
their native costumes, waiting their turn for audience. 
To my agreeable surprise, on sending in my card I was 
immediately favored with an interview. Hastily in- 
forming Mr. Hawes of that which had been done in the 
case, I besought him to lose no time in assisting me 
through. 

Dialogue: "What do you want of me?" "An 
introduction to the premier." " You know not what 
you ask." " I have ventured to ask, and I beseech you 
not to delay, — to-morrow if possible." " Who is this 

Mr. ? I don't know him." "It is not likely you 

should know him, for he was one of our bitterest polit- 
ical enemies when you were running for Lambeth on 
both occasions, but we lose no prestige in helping a 
Tory out of a scrape." "Where is your petition?" 
" In the outer office." Having the documents before 
him he expressed surprise at the number of names, ' 
many of whom were those of his friends and political ad- 
mirers. He then said that to present a petition to the 
minister in person would not be in accordance with the 
established rule. " You will therefore please to leave 
it with me, and I will present it in due form, and also do 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON. 155 

all I can to promote its prayer. But with regard to 
the other feature of your request, namely, an interview 
with the premier, I am afraid I can hold out no hope. 
Business at the present juncture is so pressing that I 
am loth to trespass on his time, even for a moment." 
I rose to depart, offering an apology for having occu- 
pied so much of his valuable time, when, placing his 
hand in mine, looking me straight in the eye, and 
doubtless detecting the illy-concealed workings of dis- 
appointment therein depicted, said : " Good-day, my 
dear friend ; be not discouraged, we know nothing of 
to-morrow." On the following day I received a note 
to call at his office next morning, which summons I 
gladly obeyed, and speedily found myself, under the 
auspices of Mr. Hawes, in the presence of the ruler of 
the British empire. The kindly greeting and sim- 
ple mannerism of the premier inspired me with cour- 
age. I felt at ease when he said, " I have examined 

your petition in behalf of J. T. , handed to me 

by Mr. Hawes, asking a commutation of his sentence 
of seven years. You have expressed a wish to see me 
on the subject ; pray give me your views and I will 
listen." What I said I know not. But a favorable 
impression was evinced by the receipt of the following 
note: 

Dear Sir, — I have to inform you that the sentence of John Thomas 

has been commuted from seven years' transportation to a penal 

settlement to two years in Portsmouth dockyard. 

(Signed,) Ben t jamin Hawes, Jr. 

The joy of Mrs. , of Emma (who was now one 

of us), and the family was unbounded. The congratu- 
lations of the parishioners were numerous and sincere. 



156 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES. 

During the period of his servitude he conducted him- 
self with marked propriety, and became very useful to 
the government, which secured him many privileges, 
and even wages for extra work. Poor Emma received 
her periodical letters from her father, whom she dearly 
loved. They were generally satisfactory, though pe- 
rused by the authorities. His black locks had become 
a sable silvered, but his health was excellent ; nothing 
to complain of in the treatment, the restrictions falling 
short of the deserts of his folly. At length, restored to 
his manhood, he reached his home under the shades of 
night, and in the same hour, in the presence of Emma, 
in my parlor, poured out his soul in gratitude for what 
had been done in the behalf of himself and family. A 
debtor and creditor account of my stewardship I handed 
him, with the balance in hand ; " and now," he said, with 
unspeakable thanks, " for what you have done for us, I 
hope you will pardon me asking a continuance of your 
legislation for a short time. I have had an offer for 
the property in Hill street, which would leave a balance 
of ^400 clear in my hands, but I cannot overcome 
the horror of meeting those with whom I have done 
business. I must therefore not only leave Peckham, but 
the line of business I am in, and should like to avail my 
self of your advice." I said, " It is strange, but there is 
advertised in the Times of to-day a snug little shop in 
my line of business in the village of Acton, Middlesex. 
Let us ride out there to-morrow, examine the books, 
look around, and judge of its value. M We went, we saw, 
we bought. Two years afterward I found the family all 
well and prosperous. On my way home I called on a 
friend, and while seated in his garden Cocking passed 



OF DAVTD JOHNSTON. 157 

over our heads in his parachute, which was fearfully 
oscillating, from the car attached to Green's Nassau 
balloon. He was only going up about a mile or so, as 
was announced, to astonish the natives by showing 
how easy it is to counteract the disastrous consequences 
of a rapid obedience to the law of gravitation by means 
of a judicious manipulation of the air we breathe. 
The last of poor Cocking was related by the aeronaut 
on his return in the evening to Vauxhall gardens, 
whence they ascended early on the same afternoon. 
M When they had reached the altitude required, " said 
Mr. Green, " Mr. Cocking hallooed out : ' Green, cut 
the rope/ I replied * that I was afraid to do so ; that 
from my standpoint the extreme oscillation made it 
appear unsafe/ * If you don't, I will/ 'That would 
make it unsafe/ ' Cut the rope/ were the last words of 
poor Cocking. I reluctantly did so, and relieved of 
his superincumbent weight the Nassau ascended too 
rapidly to be pleasant. In half a minute I was out of 
sight of the bold adventurer. A flash of lightning 
could scarcely be more evanescent than was my gaze 
upon his hopeless fate. He was found in a field near 
Lewisham, in Kent, with every bone in his body 
broken/' 

About this period one of the petty lions of London 
was to repair to some isolated spot outside the din of the 
city favorable to hearing the public time-pieces proclaim 
the midnight hour. Indulging in the whim under the 
lamplight on Vauxhall bridge, watch in hand, I might 
have been found timing the process. The light breeze 
from the east proved propitious in wafting on the broad 
and silent bosom of the Thames the varied sounds emit- 



158 AUTOBIOGKAPHICAL REMINISCENCES. 

ted from the wide metropolitan expanse, a medley of 
sounds not easy to describe. The period required on 
that occasion to strike the hour of twelve covered 
eight long minutes. The authorities of the Polytech- 
nic Institution subsequently failed to perceive the 
force of Mr. Bain's* proposition to have the clocks of 
London, by means of electricity, strike every hour sim- 
ultaneously. We are now, in the year 1833, develop- 
ing the fruits of the great discovery of Benjamin 
Franklin, who, about 1760, by means of his ingenious 
kiting, chained the lightning to his scientific will. 

The Princess Victoria, on the twenty-fourth day of 
May, 1837, became of age (eighteen years old). Con- 
siderable anxiety was aroused by certain unpleasant, 
ill-defined rumors, said to have emanated from her 
uncle, the Duke of Cumberland, King of Hanover, touch- 
ing the succession to the throne, which, on feeling the 
pulse of the nation, the friends of the Duke suffered to 
subside. 



*Alex. Bain laid claim to the distinction of being the discoverer or inventor of 
the electric telegraph, but Mr. Morse proved too strong for the humble Scotch 
journeyman watchmaker in American courts of law, and the man who constructed 
the electric telegraph between London and Blackwall had to take a back seat. 



CHAPTER XXII. 



Is there for honest poverty wha hangs his head an' a' that ? 
The coward slave we pass him by, an* daur be puir for a' that. 

— Burns, 

THE poor law of England (of 43d Elizabeth) 
was intended as a compensation for the loss 
which the helpless poor had sustained by the destruc- 
tion of the religious houses throughout the land, the 
work of her father, Henry VIII. Officers under this 
new law were elected in open vestry on Easter Tues- 
day, for one year, with the option of serving or paying 
a fine, which for an overseer was ^100. If elected 
a second time it was left to the elected party's 
option to serve or not. This enactment had stood 
the test of two centuries, but became the basis of 
fearful abuse. Indeed, whatever good pertained to 
the enactment of good Queen Bess was pretty nearly 
extinct by the time it descended to our days of the 
Sailor King. The management of the poor in those 
days, like the government of Ireland in the present, 
appeared to defy all legislatorial tinkering. All labor- 
saving machinery was speedily consumed by the torch 
of the midnight incendiary. The farmer had his land 
tilled by the roundsman system, than which a system 
more destructive to the self-sustaining independence of 
the individual could not be conceived short of the 
nether regions. Consequently, the poor-rate was fear- 
fully augmented, so that the richer the land the 

159 



160 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

higher the rate. Thus, while seven shillings in the 
pound sufficed for the comparatively poor land of the 
center of Surrey, it rose to twenty-two shillings in the 
pound in the rich wealds of Kent. For a practical 
knowledge of the then existing state of things in Eng- 
land I refer the reader to the preamble of Lord 
Brougham's Poor Law Amendment Act. 

Individually the parish officers of Camberwell were 
in support of Brougham's efforts, and such measures 
as were carried in that spirit during their first year's 
service were by the rate-payers duly appreciated, and 
the means of leading a large majority to make requisi- 
tion for our services for another year, which was com- 
plied with on understanding that to reassess the parish 
would be their earliest endeavor, and when such were 
fairly before the parish the people craved the active 
co-operation of all who were desirous of such a meas- 
ure. The yote was such as to give rise to the coarse 
Tory opposition above spoken of. Baldwin, the pro- 
prietor of the Standard (the man who said in his jour- 
nal that it would be to the advantage of England were 
all her manufactories destroyed), under the auspices 
of the vicar, led the opposition against the over- 
seers and called for a revision of the vote of Easter. 
There being no opposition on the part of the officers a 
meeting was convened by them, as it were, for the 
purpose of trying themselves, the chair occupied by the 
vicar of St. Giles, Camberwell, and the hall crammed. 
They having called a meeting it devolved on the offi- 
cers to make known its purpose. Daniel Triquet said: 
" The object of this meeting is to revise or rescind cer- 
tain resolutions passed at a former meeting of your- 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON. 161 

selves. The action referred to on Easter Tuesday- 
placed in power your present officers, and if I may be 
allowed to speak for my brother officers, in common 
with myself, I would say that while we enjoy the honor 
of the trust which has been placed in our hands we are 
by no means insensible of the nature of its responsi- 
bilities. We leave the investigation of our conduct in 
your hands untrammeled." A spirited meeting termi- 
nated in a vote of thanks to and an expression of confi- 
dence in the present officers of St. Giles, Camberwell. 
Not a soul left the parish in consequence of our over- 
assessments, as they were termed, but to allay all bitter 
hostility we established a committee of appeal of eight- 
een gentlemen, before whom cases in dispute should be 
brought, all expenses in the way of appraising to fall 
on the party found in error. This scheme worked 
admirably, threw oil upon the troubled waters, and 
brought the labors of the three triumphant parochial 
officers to a successful termination, having by dint 
of much labor and some tongue-fighting augmented 
the rental assessable to the extent of ^48,000 and 
reduced the poor-rate from five shillings in the pound 
to three shillings and nine pence in the pound per 
annum. The novelty of voting for members of 
parliament now presented itself to the middle class, 
and our reform club was far from being idle in canvass- 
ing our district of the metropolitan borough of 
Lambeth on behalf of the two successful candidates, 
Charles E. D'Eyncourt and Benjamin Hawes, Junior, 
Esquires. One of the first acts of the reform parlia- 
ment was to pass the poor law amendment act. Hence- 
forth all parochial matters were placed under the 
11 



162 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

management of a board of guardians, eighteen in 
number, elected by the plurality of voting system. 
That is, according to the extent of the voter's assessment 
to the support of the poor shall his power to dispense 
it be regulated. Now this measure, according to its pre- 
amble, among other things fully intended to eschew all 
semblance to the older system, even to the exclusion 
of those persons who participated in the affairs of the 
past fossil. I therefore regard the fact of placing my 
name among the successful candidates for the honor of 
sitting on that board as one of the most unmistakable 
compliments and marks of esteem that my fellow-par- 
ishioners could confer. At this board I felt less at 
home than I did at the old work-house board, of which 
the overseer was necessarily a prominent member and 
the board itself composed of materials much more in 
unison with my own position in society — several my in- 
timate neighbors. Here I am in contact with men mov- 
ing in a more elevated atmosphere, higher in wealth, 
in education, influence, in habit of prestige, and that 
which I will not rank among the higher attributes, and 
which happily was confined to a few — contemptible 
hauteur. What did I possess, or did I possess any- 
thing, to fit me for such society? I'll look in and see. 
On self-examination I found a mass of contrarieties, the 
predominant ingredient being a stubborn, unconquerable 
Scotch pride, which enabled me to look and laugh at airs 
assumed, and which can be turned to practical advan- 
tage if kept under control. I also found my knowledge 
of the poor of the parish a powerful incentive to respect 
and deference on the part of my seventeen compeers, 
who were doubtless practiced in eleemosynary relief, but 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON. 163 

found that to administer relief to the poor by act of 
parliament involved duties with which they were en- 
tirely unacquainted, and for necessary information had 
to be beholden to the ex-overseer or to the paid officers 
of the parish, who might not be present when wanted. 
It required but a few evenings to find ease and homely 
comfort in the meetings. An anecdote told by Sir 
John Pirie, one of the most efficient members of the 
board, is worthy of a place here as an illustration of 
Scottish character. After a hard afternoon's work the 
board relapsed into a chatty, social mood, the conver- 
sation — on the constituent elements necessary to form a 
business man — shaping itself into a friendly argument. 
Integrity, punctuality, perseverance and other attributes 
shared the common praise, and their opposites the com- 
mon censure. But the question assumed a more defi- 
nite shape as to which of the three first-named qualities 
was the most important ingredient in the compound. 
After several speeches Sir John arose and said, " I am 
gratified with the remarks made on this important sub- 
ject, and feel inclined to depart from my usual practice 
of silence on occasions of this kind and to say a few 
words in behalf of the opinions advanced in favor of 
perseverance. Some twenty years ago I was informed 
that a ragged but cleanly boy had called at the 
outer office of my establishment in the city, day 
after day, at precisely the same hour, for more than a 
week. 'What does he want?' * He wants to see you/ 
■ Have you asked if he has any business with the 
house?' ' I have, sir, and he answers in the affirmative, 
but it can only be done with you personally,' ' Is he 
likely to call again ?' ' I should think him dead should 



164 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

he fail to make his call at ten to-morrow morning.' 
'Then if he does call, and I am here, bring him in.' 
Sure enough, the sonorous sound of Bow Bell had 
not ceased to vibrate the hour of ten when the timid 
knock of the little fellow was the open sesame to the 
business establishment of the greatest ship owner in 
the world, the man who had but a few months ago de- 
scended from the loftiest seat of the greatest city in 
the world. His little body clothed in a shabby cordu- 
roy suit, out at elbows, and his curly pow surmounted 
by a blue bonnet, with shoes barely keeping his toes 
from the stony street, and a small bundle squeezed so 
tightly under his arm as to indicate fear that his prop- 
erty was jeopardized by the interview, there stood 
the boy, bonnet in hand, before me," said Sir John, 
" inspiring confidence at the first glance. Still I deemed 
it a duty thus to interrogate him closely : 

" l I am informed you called repeatedly at the office 
to see me ; now I stand before you, let me ask you 
what is your business with me ? ' 

" ' 1 want employment, sir/ 

" < Employment? Is that all? ' 

u ' It is everything to me, sir/ 

" ' That may be true, but mine is not an employment 
office. Did any one tell you to apply to me for em- 
ployment ? ' 

"'Yes, my mither telt me, sir. She said that if 
ever I be spared to reach London to be sure and ask 
your guidance. She telt me you had been a puir lad- 
die once yersel*, and that ye left the toon o' Dunse wi' 
very little siller in yer pouch, and ye had only half a 
croon when ye reached London; that ye was a guid 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON. 165 

man, that ye read yer Bible, that ye prospered in busi- 
ness, that the folks o' London loved ye and made ye 
Lord Mayor, that the folks o' Dunse were proud o' ye, 
and that ' 

" Here I had to stop him by asking him where his 
mother was that was so lavish in her praises of an 
individual she could not possibly know. 

" ' Know ? she kens ye weel, my faither was second 
gardener o' Dunse Castle; he died whan I was young; 
my mither has since then worked hard tae keep me at 
the schule. Her knowledge of you and your family was 
during her young and happy days. She aften made me 
greet in speakin' o' them, and no that seldom grat 
herselV 

" - How did you get so far from home ? ' 

" ' I started on fit, but had mony a lift/ 

" ' How much money did you possess on starting on 
a journey of four hundred miles on foot?' 

" ' Nine shillings, the wages of the half year's herd- 
ing in the Lammermuirs/ 

" I confess," said Sir John, " to a little suspicion 
from his ready answers, and trying him in another way. 
1 Please to name the prominent men of Dunse when 
you left/ And it was grateful to my ear, being a native 
of the place, to listen to a long, clear roll of clergymen, 
school-masters, doctors, lawyers, merchants and trades- 
men, which he rattled off, many of whom were familiar 
names and dearly beloved friends. Seeing that I was 
losing ground I ceased to interrogate, and stooped to 
business. ' What can you do should I make room in 
this office for you ? ' 

" ' 'Deed, I can do but little, but I can soon learn 



166 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

mair. In the meantime, I can supe the house and rin 
an errand/ 

" ' I have never asked your name/ 

" ' Georgy Denham/ 

u ' Well, George, consider yourself one of us, and at 
ten to-morrow you can draw in advance what you re- 
quire to get rid of your corduroys/ And when I inform 
you, gentlemen, that the boy of twenty years ago and 
the gentleman now in charge of my books is one and 
the same person you will not marvel at my giving per- 
severance the preference in your discussion/' 

About this time the parish sustained a serious loss. 
The new system of heating buildings by hot air rami- 
fying in pipes had been two years in operation in the 
grand old parish church, when the smell of smoulder- 
ing fire on the evening of a very cold Sunday was felt. 
The wardens went through the form of a superficial 
examination, locked the doors, and pocketing the keys 
left the ancient Gothic' edifice to its fate. By eight 
o'clock on the following morning a mass of black ruins 
marked the spot whereon stood one of the finest speci- 
mens of its kind for seven hundred years, dating back 
to the days of Edward the Confessor. The rebuilding 
of the church gave rise to a bitter controversy. The 
taste of the reverend incumbent could not be satis- 
fied short of a ,£40,000 structure. Others, perhaps 
equally orthodox, would have been contented with 
an edifice at a much less cost ; a third party, again, 
held that the burden of building a new church should 
not be saddled on the parish, but on those who wor- 
shiped in it. A well finished perspective drawing of an 
architectural design, which met the views of the 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON. 167 

incumbent and his party, settled the matter, and now 
St. Giles, Camberwell, is ornamented with a very costly 
accommodation for the few at the expense of the 
many. 

In the course of these events I happened to be eye- 
witness to three great fires — the Tower of London, the 
Royal Exchange and the Houses of Parliament — involv- 
ing the loss of historical buildings impossible to replace. 
The Thames tunnel was also concocted, begun and 
finished during these busy years of adventure. An 
accident happened in the process of construction which 
threatened destruction to the whole scheme. The ex- 
cavation had successfully reached about half-way across, 
when suddenly, without any warning, the angry Thames 
broke in upon seven poor souls, who were instantly 
washed back to the entrance, to find the doors hung 
the wrong way, and their retreat irremediably cut off. 
This untoward event cast a gloom on the scientific 
world, of which the community partook, all but the 
great inventor himself, who immediately applied his 
brain to the remedy. He stopped the leak by means of 
sandbags and clay, and by powerful pumps emptied the 
cavity in an incredibly short space of time, went on 
to its satisfactory completion, thereby setting the egg 
on end to all tunnel builders in the future. 

Not long after this achievement Mr. Brunei met 
with a personal accident which very nearly cost him 
his valuable life. In his hours of relaxation from busi- 
ness he was wont to play with the children, making 
himself one of them, and on one occasion he was dis- 
tending their wondering eyes by sleight-of-hand tricks 
with coin, and by some unaccountable means a half 



168 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

sovereign got into his throat, and there it stuck for 
several days, bidding defiance to the surgical skill of 
the metropolis. A bulletin every half hour announced 
the painful condition of the patient, till a conver- 
sation was overheard in the kitchen by a member of 
the family which was anything but complimentary to 
the faculty, one of the servants declaring that she 
knew what would cure her master. This being made 
known to the physician in charge of the case he 
sought an interview with the eloquent maid, who, 
being brought face to face with him and the family, 
thought she was about to be rebuked for her freedom 
of speech, but was greatly relieved by a kind interroga- 
tory on the part of the doctor, if she would please 
explain the theory of the curative she spoke of in the 
kitchen last evening touching the case in hand, stating 
that in the event of its being reasonable he might be 
induced to avail himself of it, and if successful she alone 
should reap the honor. Thus encouraged, the girl stated 
that while in the service of a family in Scarborough one 
of her fellow-servants, playing with a silver thimble and 
pretending to swallow it, got it so fixed in her throat 
that it baffled all the skill of the doctors to remove it. 
Everybody thought she must die, when a young doctor 
from Newcastle, hearing of the case, suggested that as a 
dernier ressort the patient should be suspended by her 
heels. This experiment was put in force, and while in 
that position it was fearful to witness her struggles for 
breath ; she grew black in the face, but, thank God ! the 
thimble tumbled on the floor. The physician listened 
to the girl's simple story, and lost no time in gravely 
submitting the proposition that such an experiment 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON. 169 

might be tried with Mr. Brunei. The family, having 
lost all hope of saving his life, readily acquiesced, and 
accordingly the great engineer was subjected to the 
painful ordeal, and a nation had to thank God that the 
insignificant metallic representation of a paltry sum of 
ten shillings trundled on the carpet. It is needless 
here to observe that the loquacious servant was not 
forgotten by the liberal family to whose happiness she 
unwittingly contributed. Another extraordinary sur- 
gical case transpired about this time. The laws of 
China are based on the philosophy of Confucius, who 
seemed to have had an overweening regard for human 
blood, so much so, that even in the process of neces- 
sary healing there should not be a drop spilled. 

I make mention of the case of Hoo Loo to show the 
folly of such an enactment as is built on this dread of 
blood-letting in China. This poor fellow had a tumor 
on the lower part of his abdomen, the removal of 
which, taken in time, it was asserted by the faculty, 
was susceptible of being performed in safety. But in the 
event of a failure in the use of the scalpel, so that the 
patient dies in consequence of its application, the life 
of the surgeon using it is called for to satisfy the law. 
Hoo Loo, whose rapidly increasing appendage now 
touched the ground, seeing his end approaching, agreed 
to accompany the physician of a London ship for the 
purpose of having it removed. 

This case was put under the care of Sir Aston Key, 
at Guy's Hospital, Southwark, who reluctantly assumed 
the responsibility, saying there was a very faint hope 
of saving the life of the patient. The case was unprece- 
dented, and provoked an immense popular sympathy 



170 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

in his preparation for the knife. An hourly bulletin 
was posted on the hospital gates announcing his condi- 
tion, and when the morning dawned whereon the great 
test of human skill versus human tenacity of life was 
to be made the intervals between the bulletins was 
shortened to five minutes. The history of the sequel 
of this interesting case cannot, I think, be given better 
than by recording the bulletins as I then read them as 
announced on that day : 

Hoo Loo is cheerful, ate breakfast with fair appetite, 
8:30; Hoo Loo preparing for the operation, 9 o'clock ; 
Hoo Loo in hospital theater, bearing up well, 9:30 ; 
Hoo Loo's tumor removed, vitality hopeful, 10 
o'clock; Hoo Loo not so well, a slight fever set in, 
10:30; Hoo Loo rallying, 11 o'clock; Hoo Loo 
worse, with return of fever, 11:30; Hoo Loo hopelessly 
sinking, 12 o'clock; Hoo Loo worse, hemorrhage 
set in, 12:30; Hoo Loo sinking, no hope in the case, 

1 o'clock; Hoo Loo dying, 1:30; Hoo Loo died at 

2 minutes to 2 o'clock. All signed in person by Sir 
Aston Key, who, next to Sir Astley Cooper, was at this 
time considered the leading surgeon in England. 

Thus was added one more human life to the long 
list lying at the door of Confucius. But doubtless it 
was not so intended by that great philosopher. 

I had had, from time to time, friendly visits from 
William Sue, who had married a second cousin of 
mine, who had many years ago settled in Rouen, in 
Normandy, and whose skill in the construction of 
wind-mills attracted the attention of Louis Philippe, 
then Due D'Orleans. William's fortune rose with his 
patron, and when Charles X fell from his high 



OF DAYID JOHNSTON. 171 

estate, and La Fayette, like a second Warwick, 
set up Louis Philippe in his place, it might have been 
said that his fortune was made. 

The firm of Messrs. Sue, Adkins & Barker be- 
came famous throughout Europe for the excellence of 
their marine and other engines. An incident may here 
be recorded to show how the firm stood with the king. 
The Due de Chartres, the eldest-born of the king, was 
dispatched to investigate and report upon the manu- 
factures of Rouen, and on such occasions it is the duty of 
the mayor of the city to furnish the delegated authority 
with a list of all the fabriques (as they are called) within 
his jurisdiction. On the return of the report the king 
discovered the omission of the concern in which he was 
the most interested, and gave orders that no time be 
lost in redeeming the insult by a special visit to Messrs. 
Sue, Adkins & Barker, also to inquire whence the 
garbled list. The prince and suite were handsomely 
entertained by the firm, and Monsieur Le Maire 
snubbed for his petty jealousy of the successful English 
mechanics whose prosperity was not in accordance with 
his will. William had several patents on the tapis, cov- 
ering England as well as France, which brought him 
frequently across the channel, and every visit was ac- 
companied by a cordial invitation to return the visit, 
to which at length I consented. After a pleasant day's 
sail from London we arrived in Boulogne in the evening 
of July 4, 1841, and started for Rouen on the 5th; slept 
at Beauvais and breakfasted at Neufchatel,from the latter 
commanding one of the finest views in the world from 
the eminence over which the road passes. There lies 
the antique city of Rouen at your feet in all its rich 



172 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

grandeur; its splendid cathedrals and churches; the 
ancient tower of the cloche Pargent (to form this bell 
the patriotic ladies of the time poured in their trinkets 
and their household gods, hence the name) ; the old 
market place where stands the memento of England's 
superstitious cruelty in the statue of the heroic Maid of 
Orleans, pointing out the spot whereon she was burned 
alive ; Mont St. Catherine, whereon the first telegraph 
was erected ; the noble boulevards that ornament the 
suburbs, albeit their beauty is by illy-chosen foliage 
(Lombardy poplar) much impaired ; the beautiful Seine, 
meandering as far as the eye can reach through a mag- 
nificent country teeming in historical reminiscences. 
This was for centuries the battlefield of two enlight- 
ened nations. In the pleasant suburban village of 
Chartreuse I found my friend at the head of a firm em- 
ploying four hundred men. " Welcome to France, Da- 
vid," he said ; "and now we have you, make yourself at 
home as long as you like to stay. There is the gig at 
your service when you want to drive to the city, or a 
saddle-horse for the forest when you desire to see our 
French scenery. The Juliet fetes are at hand; I shall 
have to be in Paris on that occasion, and now look to 
you for a companion: go by land, return by water." 
Thus my sojourn in La Grande Nation was all cut and 
dried by Monsieur William Sue, who was so Frenchified 
as to find it irksome to speak his mother-tongue, and so 
busy that I saw but little of him. Still he did introduce 
me to La Societe d'Emulation and his club, but my 
lack of language took the edge off the pleasure I should 
otherwise have had. I was more delighted in scanning 
the richly carved monuments in the interior of the 



OF DAYID JOHNSTON. 173 

cathedrals, also the sculpture and paintings at the Musee. 
A few days prior to the fetes we started for the great 
city, took up our quarters in Hotel TEmpereur, and 
hastened to an English rendezvous for the purpose of 
meeting the hero of St. Jean d'Acre, Sir Sidney Smith, 
but were five minutes too late. He it was who chal- 
lenged Napoleon Bonaparte to mortal combat, which 
fact proved the basis of a romantic and life-long attach- 
ment between the two heroes. We did Paris as much 
as possible in the limited time at our command, and 
embarked by steamer down the Seine to Rouen, through 
the most delightfully variegated scenery the whole 
length of the passage. 

Among things to be admired in France is the effect 
of the abrogation of the law of primogeniture. The 
census of 1834-showed that in a population of 33,000,- 
000 there were no less than 11,000,000 having a direct 
interest in the land. 

The manner of transacting business of importance 
is also worthy of notice here, which a case in point 
may serve to show : 

" I want you to accompany me to the breakfast 

table of Mons. , the best boat-builder in Paris, and 

observe how we do business on this side of the Chan- 
nel. You will take notice that all bargains and con- 
tracts are struck at the breakfast table by and through 
the medium of the lady of the house; when signed and 
countersigned by a notary public they are binding." 
This invitation I readily accepted from William, and 
spent a very agreeable morning. The sumptuous meal 
over, the lady, in the presence of her husband, dotted 
down that for the consideration of so many thousand 



174 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES. 

francs she bound herself to deliver to the firm of Messrs. 
Sue, Adkins & Barker, at Rouen, on a given day, a vessel 
of so many tons burthen, built so as to receive an engine 
of a given power and weight, and to draw just so much 
water as to fit her for the navigation of the upper 
Seine. His business completed, and the Juliet fetes 
in commemoration of the barricades of 1830, with all 
their folly annually perpetrated, now it became neces- 
sary to change the scene from the Seine to the 
Thames — from happy France to happier England. 
With that intent I bade adieu to Rouen and its hospi- 
talities, and embarked on the steamer Normandie for 
Havre de Grace, on the deck of which was sunk a coffin- 
shaped sheet of brass to mark the spot whereon lay the 
remains of the great Napoleon on their way from 
St. Helena to the Hotel des Invalides, his last resting- 
place. 

The scenery of the lower is bolder and more histori- 
cally interesting than that of the upper Seine. Here 
the picturesque haunts of Robert Le Diable, and there 
the birthplace of William the Conquerer, at old Caen ; 
also the ancient towns of Harfleur and Honfleur, also 
the beautiful chateau and estate of Tankerville, once 
the property of the celebrated financier, John Law, 
terminating with the grand old town and harbor of 
Havre de Grace. Then farewell, France, politically 
tempest-tossed nation. Already the seat of your new 
king is a seat of thorns. A few years later we find him 
an exile in Holyrood House, Edinburgh. Refugees of 
all nations seek and find shelter and safety on this little 
island of ours. Long may she maintain her enviable 
position among the nations of the earth. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



Ere Tully arose in the zenith of Rome, 
Tho* enequaled, preceded, the task was begun — 
But Grattan sprung up like a God from the tomb 
Of ages, the first, last, the Savior, the One. 

— Byron. 

THE famine of 1846 in the sister kingdom, while 
claiming its victims by tens of thousands, was 
by no means unfelt in England and Scotland. My 
business was thereby ruined and my houses partially 
untenanted, so that I very soon found myself unable 
to meet my engagements. After struggling for more 
than a year, getting deeper in debt, with the help of 
friends, and seeing no other alternative, I resolved to 
bring my property to the hammer. I wrote to Mr. 
Home, of whom I had borrowed ,£3,000, to that ef- 
fect. That gentleman's answer, inclosing a ^50 Bank 
of England note, breathed the kindest feelings of 
commiseration and earnest advice against my resolu- 
tion to sell, proffering to forego the interest on his loan 
until it was convenient to pay. But the die was cast. 
On the pouring wet 28th of February, 1848, property 
worth over ,£7,000 was, from the paucity of buyers, 
sold for ^4,600, a sum which, after all claims were sat- 
isfied, left me a sorry margin. The cash from the sale 
was to be paid in June, but delayed until July. In the 
interim I had to combat the friendly objections to my 
choosing the States for my new field of action on the 
part of the under secretary of state for the colonies. 
Mr. Hawes expressed his sorrow that I should have to 
leave England, " but in the event of your so doing," 

175 



176 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES. 

he said, " pray choose one of our colonies, that I may 
be of service to you," a hint that I have sometimes 
thought myself silly not to heed. But a desire I had 
fostered for many years to visit the great republic not 
only conquered all overtures to the contrary but served 
as a solace to the severe trials I was then undergoing. 
On polemics I have been purposely silent, deeming 
sentiments thereon to be the private property of the 
individual. Still I feel that to leave England without 
a passing word of farewell to the Society of Friends I 
should be doing an injustice to that warm-hearted 
people. My connection for many years with the 
Anti-Slavery, Peace, Temperance, and other kindred 
societies had the effect of drawing me into close con- 
tact with the salt of the earth, among which stands 
prominently the Society of Friends. My admiration of 
the " Quakers " induced me to worship with that people 
for the last seven years of my English life. In short, I 
became very much enamored of their mode of worship. 
Never before was I so impressed with the true elo- 
quence of silence in waiting upon the manifestation of 
spirituality. The kindly feeling manifested by that 
people on my departure for America can never be 
forgotten, and I regret the pinching hand of poverty 
which induced me to decline the acceptance of the 
handsome present of a copy of every book in their 
extensive library. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 



To the West, to the West, to the land of the free, 
Where mighty Missouri rolls down to the sea; 
Where a man is a man if he's willing to toil, 
It's there he will gather the fruits of the soil. 

— Mackay. 

ON the nth of August, 1848, on leaving money 
with Mr. Clements for the transit of my family, I 
took leave of all that was dear to me, on my pioneer 
excursion ; took passage in the Britannia, at Liverpool, 
on the 1 2th ; arrived at Halifax on the 24th, Boston on 
the 26th. The enterprise of the press of America was 
made manifest by the news we brought over with us 
being sold, of which we were the bearers, before we 
reached the depot to take our tickets for New York. 
Arriving at Stonington I was surprised to find myself 
on board of a beautiful steamer, the Vanderbilt. We 
arrived at New York on the following day. My first 
desire was to find Frederick Wheeler, my wife's only 
brother, whom I found in Philadelphia, with his wife, 
boarding with a Quaker lady. While sitting at supper 
one evening one of the boarders left the table in haste 
for a few minutes; she returned and asked the lady if any- 
one had been to her room. Upon being answered in the 
negative she then said, " I have lost a purse of money 
and a gold watch." Upon this announcement several 
12 177 



178 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

followed her example, with a like result. I took the 
alarm and went myself, finding my two trunks, with 
locks wrenched off and the clothes scattered, but noth- 
ing stolen. Going to the theater the night before I 
put my money round my waist. On the following day 
I asked the parties if they intended applying to the 
police, an idea which they seemed to scout, prefer- 
ring spiritualistic means to recover their property, — 
my first lesson in this American folly. Curiosity led 
me to postpone my journey back to New York, to wit- 
ness the fun. The losers went in a body to Dr. 
Knapp, whose medium sat with her back to him, blind- 
folded. He, facing the audience, asked the questions, 
and received the answers through the medium, but 
nothing touching the whereabouts of the stolen prop- 
erty transpired. 

I had arranged with Mr. Earl, an artist, whose 
acquaintance I made in Peckham, and who intended 
to embark with his family to New York, when they 
arrived to mail a letter for me, to be left till called for. 
I did call several times, perceiving by the papers that 
the vessel had arrived in which they embarked ; but 
still no letter. I was put to considerable expense to 
find him, which led us mutually to call on the post- 
master to ascertain the reason his letter was not deliv- 
ered to me. We were well received by the postmaster, 
who rang a bell and demanded the clerk to deliver a 
letter directed to Mr. Johnston, which the clerk did. 

The postmaster thanked me for the pains I had taken, 
and was pleased to say that such were necessary to in- 
sure perfectibility in the office. Finding the character 
of Mr. Connoly, the man discharged, to be good, I vent- 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON. 179 

ured to beseech the postmaster, on behalf of his wife, 
and three children, to reconsider his loss of position, 
which he did, and I had the satisfaction of personally 
receiving thanks from both the employer and employe 
on the following day. Under the advice of Fred I pro- 
cured a soldiers warrant for $108, which was good for 
160 acres of land, wheresoever found unpreempted in 
Uncle Sam's extensive domain. In quest of that ideal 
home I started for the far west. My admiration of 
the beautiful scenery of the Hudson was only sur- 
passed when first I caught a glimpse of that wonder- 
ful inland sea at Buffalo, of which I had read so much. 
Nor was it impaired by a voyage to Chicago on the 
superb steamer Empire City, which was delightfully 
interesting, a description of which appeared in the 
London Weekly Dispatch, Chicago in 1848 was any- 
thing but a tempting place whereon to pitch one's 
tent. The Tremont House was then in the process of 
building, but such was the general aspect of the town 
that a slice of its land in any part of it, if blessing at 
all, would have been a blessing in disguise. The state 
of Illinois had just been formed and admitted into the 
family of commonwealths. The waters of the Missis- 
sippi were joined to those of Lake Michigan by means 
of a canal from Chicago to Peru, and ground was 
either broken or about to be broken for a railroad be- 
tween Chicago and Galena. By canal I went to Peoria, 
thence to Princeville. In the neighborhood of this 
little place I inspected a quarter-section of fine, undu- 
lating prairie land, whereon I thought I might pitch 
my tent, all other things being equal. On my way 
back to the village I called at the only human dwell- 



180 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

ing within a mile of the spot. It was a log-cabin, pre- 
senting a scene of misery such as I have never seen 
the like before nor since. The door was hanging by 
one hinge ; the window-sash had evidently once con- 
tained six panes of glass, for one, though broken, still 
remained. The other five apertures where transpar- 
ency was intended were now rendered opaque by 
means of an unseemly mass of unwashed remnants of 
human clothing, not forgetting the hat. Notwith- 
standing the forbidding appearance of the external 
aspect of the domicile I ventured to essay a knowl- 
edge of the interior. " Unwelcome " stood out in bold 
relief on the countenance of the eight inmates. The 
head of the house was a man of forty, who, though 
handsome, evinced the most villainous expression. His 
head he carried five feet nine from the ground he trod 
on ; his frame was muscular, his action agile, and his 
black hirsute covering might have adorned a dandy, if, 
like the mother of Hood's lost heir, he only took time 
to show it the comb. A description of the mother 
and of the six half-naked offspring is, by the above 
picture of the man, I think, the work of supererogation. 
On my way to the tavern I called, on invitation, to take 
tea with the Methodist minister, who informed me 
after supper that the individual whom I visited was 
known in the neighborhood as a murderer, and it would 
be unsafe to preempt land in his locality. This testi- 
mony was corroborated by others, and settled the ques- 
tion of changing the field of prospecting. In the 
course of the evening a Mr. McClennan, a Scotch farm- 
er, arrived to stay for the night. He was on his way 
to Peoria with wheat ; should be back here on the mor- 



OF DAVID JOHXSTOiN". 181 

row, and proposed to carry me to Elmira, a land of 
milk and honey. We rode through a rich, promising 
country twenty miles, and I had a real Highland wel- 
come in the bosom of his family, and on the following 
morning was introduced to John Turnbull, who, at the 
moment of our approach, was in the act of laying the 
first brick of a new dwelling. The mechanic who con- 
tracted to build this house was a Mr. O'Grady, a good 
bricklayer from New York and London. John gave 
me a hearty welcome and expressed a wish that I 
should stay with them till the house was finished. I 
told him that my family was still in London, that until 
navigation opened in the spring I should be locked up 
in the west, and should be happy, on conditions, to 
accept of his hospitality. 

" What are the conditions?" 

"That you will give me something to do," which 
met with nothing but pooh-poohing till I pulled out my 
bricklayer's trowel, and then they saw that I was in 
earnest, and allowed me to build the inner walls and help 
Grady, who had dropped the prefix of his name, on the 
inner part of the outer walls. I was also enabled to be 
useful on the roof and in glazing eleven windows, and 
in putting on several coats of paint, so that in conse- 
quence of my little help the family was enabled to get 
safely housed in the new mansion before the keen winds 
of the severe winter of 1848-9 set in, for which they 
expressed cordial thanks. Grady, in receiving his pay 
in gold, threw down two ten dollar pieces, which he, 
with John's help, insisted on my accepting for my 
labor. He also said that if I should settle there and 
would help him build the new school-house, for which 



182 AUTOBIOGKAPHICAL KEMIKISCE^CES 

he had already contracted, he would build a house for 
my family similar to the one he had just finished for 
Mr. Turnbull and charge me nothing, which led me to 
think that my services were overestimated. Be that as 
it may, the partiality shown on the part of the individ- 
uals named seemed to pervade the community at large, 
for scarcely had the paint on the door-panels dried be- 
fore the three school commissioners called on me and 
expressed a wish for me to keep school in the district 
for the ensuing five months at the tempting salary of 
twelve dollars per month. Seeing that I was at all 
events fixed for the winter, what better amusement 
during its long, dreary days and evenings than keeping 
school? So I rode on horseback to La Fayette, nine 
miles, to the superintendent, to pass examination and 
obtain my certificate. I passed this ordeal evidently 
more to his satisfaction than to my own, for he offered 
me an advance of three dollars a month to induce me 
to teach in his own district. I thanked him and ex- 
cused myself on the score of the friendship existing 
with the people of Elmira. On my way back I was 
overtaken by a blinding snow-storm, and was glad (not 
altogether free from a sense of danger) to take shelter 
in the first cabin that fell in my path. Pleased was I 
to find myself snugly ensconced in the comfortable 
dwelling of the venerable Mr. Oliver, Mrs. Turnbull's 
father, who entreated me to stay until the storm sub- 
sided, which took three days. Forty members of Young 
America, male and female, assembled in the old log 
school-house to be taught the common school rudiments 
by one who stood as much in need of instruction as any 
of his charge, but other duties of equal importance, to 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON". 183 

say the least, pressed themselves upon me. With the 
girls I had no trouble, but several of the more advanced 
boys were difficult to manage. Among the objection- 
able habits of the boys, that of chewing tobacco I was 
determined to break, at least when practiced in school 
hours. Such, indeed, was the character of one young 
man, who shall here be nameless, that the neighbors 
were unanimous in their desire to keep him away 
from the school altogether, but I am happy to say their 
arguments were unavailing. I learned that his brutally 
ignorant father was credited with the cause of the 
very faults he essayed to cure by beating the boy 
with a heavy stick, and on one occasion nearly killing 
him with a rail. Resolved to test the law of kindness 
in such a case I tried to reach him in a variety of 
strategic manoeuvers, but utterly failed, and I confess 
to having been painfully disheartened one day when he 
in wanton cruelty rammed a pin into the fleshy part of 
a girl's arm. This crime was too bad to be passed unno- 
ticed, and I requested him to remain after the school 
was dismissed. I then informed him that I had searched 
the locality in vain to find one citizen, male or female, 
to speak well of him, all having declared that he was 
incorrigible, and that providence had sent him a friend. 
I had also endeavored to find a cause for his wanton 
brutality ; I said that he had been charged with an at- 
tempt to stab my predecessor ; that his father had taken 
the wrong means in chastising him in a brutal manner; 
that on one occasion he had knocked him down with a 
rail — the effect of all which had hardened his nature and 
made him a second Ishmael, but that, in opposition to 
the whole neighborhood, I should proffer him my kind- 



184 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

ness, and he might rely upon me to be his friend for- 
ever. He burst into tears, and from that moment be- 
came an exemplary youth. 

I had the satisfaction at a subsequent period of 
meeting this person at the Illinois fair at Chicago, a 
prosperous farmer and father of a family. In 1872 I 
visited Elmira. I found he had departed this life. 

At the close of my term, and on the receipt of $60 
for my five months' work, I turned my steps to New 
York, there to meet all that were dear to me on earth. 
Mr. Turnbull drove me to Chillicothe, on the Illinois 
river. The California fever was then at its zenith, and 
it was certainly a strange sight to see so many covered 
wagons laden with human beings, many of whom had 
sold their farms and broken up their homes to traverse 
that horrid wilderness in their eager thirst for gold. 
On our way we called on the genial borderer, Mr. 
Davidson, the veritable Dandy Dinmont of Sir Walter 
Scott. 

On the 5th of April, 1849, I bade good-by to the 
kind-hearted, hospitable John Turnbull, who returned 
to spend the night with Davidson, and I to embark 
on board the Revolution steamer for St. Louis, thence 
to Pittsburgh on the steamer Consignee, thence up the 
Monongahela river to Brownsville, thence by coach 
to Cumberland, thence by rail down through Harper's 
Ferry and the valley of the classical Potomac to Balti- 
more, thence to Philadelphia and New York, where 
I remained long enough to witness one of the most 
disgraceful scenes that could be perpetrated by a 
community calling itself civilized. The celebrated tra- 
gedian, Mr. Macready, was closing up his farewell tour 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON. 185 

in America, and was announced to play in the Astor 
House for two nights, when a malicious opposition was 
got up on the part of the roughs, instigated, it was 
said, by his American rival, Forrest, but certainly 
fanned into flame by a worthless wretch of the cogno- 
men of Ben Buntling. This creature harangued the 
ruffians into fury by a species of slang in the public 
park unmolested by the authorities, the burden of their 
idiotic song being " codfish aristocracy/' The conduct 
of part of the audience on the first night was so rude as 
to induce Macready to decline playing on the follow- 
ing evening. The drowsy authorities then half awoke 
to a sense of their danger. " What ! " said they, " shall 
the great city of New York be given up to the govern- 
ance of a rabble ?" The elite of old Manhattan, 
headed by poets, editors and eminent literary charac- 
ters, with which the island abounds, waited on the his- 
trionic chief and earnestly besought him to fulfill 
his engagement. Yielding to their importunities he 
essayed to play on the second evening. The mob 
returned in tenfold fury and numbers, tore down the 
iron railings, burst open the doors, and would doubtless 
have destroyed the opera house but for the tardy 
mayor, backed by the military, appearing on the das- 
tardly scene. The riot act was read, unheeded by the 
fools, nor did they disperse until thirty-three of their 
number bit the dust in mortal agony. For the part 
Ben played in this wholesale murder he was sent to 
Sing Sing prison for two years. 

Advised by letter that my family had embarked at 
London on board of the bark Earl Durham, I took up 
my abode on Staten Island to await their arrival. In a 



186 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

little more than a month, after a passage of seven 
weeks and three days, in a dense fog, the Durham 
safely anchored in the harbor. Counting heads, I 
missed one of our progeny. " Where is Emma? Is 
she hiding ?" " Emma is still in England with Aunt 
Parker/' my wife said, explaining the reason for leav- 
ing her behind. 

Seated in council at Rucastle's hotel in reference 
to our future course, my wife requested the assistance 
of a man of the name of Steers, who came out in the 
same ship with the family, and, strange to say, who 
had rendered himself sufficiently obnoxious on the 
passage by his hauteur. But the influence of money 
is potent, and he brought ^7,ocx) with him and 
several votes, so he was invited to participate 
in the councils which were destined to govern our 
future steps in securing a living for ten in family. In 
their best room the two families convened to legislate 
for the future course of one of said families. The ipsi 
dixit of the moneyed man was parliament enough for 
the occasion. The discussion resolved itself into town 
versus country for the pivot of our action in the future.-^ 
One hundred and sixty acres of fine land in the midst of 
a civilized community, with other advantages, together 
with my ten months' American experience, were all 
held at naught by this worshiper of the God of Mam- 
mon and his satellites. Indeed, I had the mortifica- 
tion of standing alone in a proposition on which unmis- 
takably hung the welfare of our family. The evil con- 
sequences of this decision are ever present with me, 
and will avaunt only at my grave. Had it been accom- 
plished by dint of intelligent argument the reflection 



OF DAYID JOHNSTON. 187 

might have been partially relieved of its bitterness, 
and I might have been reconciled to the loss of the 
tangible advantages of my ten months' pioneering, but 
to think of being stultified by pompous ignorance is too 
much, and that, too, displayed on the part of a man to 
those placed under his charge. But think of seven thou- 
sand pounds, all in-hard cash, pitted against something 
short of one hundred. This man settled in Marquette 
county, Wis., lent out his cash to needy neighbors, and 
died with a universal reputation of having been a man 
of very sharp practice in his dealings with those under 
his thumb. 

This vote, having the effect of casting aside all my 
pioneering efforts, and that by my own consent, has 
left an impression on my mind which I have hitherto 
failed to remove, and which, I suppose, w r ill there stick 
till the last hour. In this debate which resolved itself 
into town versus country, of course, town carried the 
vote, and to town we sailed. Arrived at Milwaukee, I 
rigged up a small school-room and commenced teach- 
ing Young America. My school increased till I was 
earning at the rate of $600 per annum, when Dr. 
James Johnson called to give me a chance to take 
charge of the first ward public school, assuring me 
that the board of commissioners, of which he was a 
member, intended to increase the salary of the teachers 
on the following year. My objection that to give up six 
for four would be anything but prudent was met by say- 
ing the people were determined to support the public 
schools, and with that view a new brick schoolhouse in 
each of the five wards of the city was now in process of 
erection, " and in unison with such sentiments I must 



188 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL EEMINISCENCES 

take my three sons from your select and place them in 
the public school, and I am authorized to say the same 
in regard to the three sons of John Furlong, an eminent 
merchant." These being prominent men in the city, 
and being myself much attached to the American 
system of common schools, I was forthwith installed as 
principal of the first ward school. My labors com- 
menced in my new avocation in an old wooden church 
building, which in the dead of winter took fire at the 
shingle roof and was totally destroyed. This accident 
threw us prematurely into the unfinished brick building 
on Division street, in the basement of which business 
went on pretty smoothly during the cold weather; but 
when the spring of 185 1 set in the ground was over- 
loaded with snow, and a sudden change in the temper- 
ature, with rain, was the means of causing a street 
flood, and on opening the door one morning I found 
all the school furniture afloat. Thus, between fire and 
water, our experience the first year was rather rough. 
However, the building was hastened to a finish, and 
soon we were in comfortable quarters. The fiscal year 
terminated satisfactorily to all but the teachers, who, 
instead of being paid in cash, were paid in county scrip 
at a discount of twenty per cent, a remuneration which, 
with all our frugality, we found inadequate to support 
a family of ten persons, for we had added one to our 
number in the shape of an ingrate. 

William McGarry had grown up in my service at 
Peckham, and when the day arrived that we must part his 
love for us waxed so strong that he would travel the 
world over with and for us, and if Mrs. J. would only ad- 
vance the wherewithal to get him across the Atlantic, 



OF DAYID JOHNSTON. 189 

being young and strong and willing to work, he would 
repay every farthing, with interest. I transmitted my 
consent, and he was added to our responsibilities. Mr. 
Alonzo Seaman took a lively interest in our struggles, 
and sold me a lot on time, whereon to place my 
school-room, and by reconstruction and addition con- 
vert it into a dwelling. Mr. George E. Harper Day 
(a relative of the Harpers of New York) became a 
warm friend, who, in his capacity of commissioner of 
schools, had favorably noticed our second daughter, 
Margaret, who was indeed somewhat precocious and 
evinced all the attributes of a natural teacher. This 
practical teachers friend one day very agreeably 
astonished me by the gratifying intelligence that he 
had been daily watching Maggie's usefulness in the 
management of the class assigned to her, and that such 
talent and assiduity should not go unrequited. His 
next visit brought the welcome tidings that the board 
had placed her on the list of teachers with a salary 
of $200 per annum, and dated her pay back six 
months ; this before she had attained her fifteenth 
year. Her elder sister, Mary Ann, proved the domes- 
tic right hand of her mother in the management of 
the happy family. The board also kept faith with 
the dominies by augmenting their salary to the tune 
of $50 for the ensuing year; this in the face of an 
enhanced price on fuel and many of the leading arti- 
cles of family consumption. To make ends meet 
proved as difficult as on the previous twelve months 
notwithstanding another advance of $50 for the third 
year, and relieved of the affectionate McGarry, who 
went on a farm at Summit, leaving his note for his 



190 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

indebtedness to me as a kind of souvenir, I suppose, 
for never did I catch a glimpse of his handsome 
Irish face again. Mr. Henry Hull became a constant 
visitor at our little cottage, and no member of our 
little coterie was blind enough not to perceive that the 
bewitching eye of Maggie proved the vulnerable point 
of our family stronghold. At the close of the third 
year I determined to try other means by which to live. 
I had in my leisure hours looked a little into the mys- 
teries of photography, and in the autumn of 1853 
embarked in that business in East Water street, Mil- 
waukee, and at the end of the year I found my indebt- 
edness increased. In the spring of 1854 I opened a 
gallery in Waukesha, with no improvement in success. 
This year was eventful. While the great comet shone 
brightly in its eccentric course through the firmament 
the star of England was burnished by the great battle 
of Inkerman on the 5th of November, and, the general 
aspect of the war in the Crimea. Henry Hull and 
Margaret were made one by Rev. Mr. Holmes in matri- 
mony, while the Asiatic cholera raged in the village 
with fatal effects. In 1855, at the request of the 
village authorities, I kept one of their schools, return- 
ing to the camera September 8, 1855 (the day Sebas- 
topol fell). In 1856 I satisfied my Milwaukee creditors 
by authorizing H. Hull to dispose of my hard-earned 
home. The balance came in the shape of forty acres 
of swamp school lands, which I parted with as an 
equivalent for instruction in the new method of mak- 
ing pictures on glass, patented by Cutting, of Boston, 
which patent was proved afterward to be worthless, 
from his having borrowed or stolen the formula from 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON. 191 

another person in his employ, and from its having been 
in use in London for a year prior to his burdening the 
shelves of the Patent Office at Washington with his 
trash. 

Up to this period I had been proof against the ma- 
larial diseases peculiar to a new country, and had the 
presumption to attribute this exemption to my many 
years' practice of teetotalism. Dearly did I pay for this 
self-righteous folly. Three long years did I suffer from 
this dire disease, twice a day shaking like an aspen leaf. 
My photographic instructions were given in Milwaukee, 
and I sojourned with my daughter, who, with her 
husband, were bigoted homoeopathists, and I became 
utterly helpless on their hands, daily craving, in vain, 
of their favorite Esculapius to relieve my constipation, 
with which I had been afflicted for fourteen days. Mr. 
Willard Haskins, to whom I am indebted for the pro- 
longation of my life, appeared at my bedside one day 
and desired me to go home to Waukesha with him. I 
showed him my helpless condition, and he clothed me 
and carried me down stairs, took me in a carriage to 
the depot, thence by rail to Waukesha, and there at 
home for several weeks he nursed me to health. I was 
then about fifty-three years of age, and now I am 
eighty-three, and I must say in common honesty I have 
never failed to tak aff ma dram frae that dreary day tae 
this. 

In my convalescence I had the honor to recite the 
poem of Tarn O' Shanter at the centennial of Burns' 
birthday at the Newhall House, Milwaukee, on the 25th 
January, 1859 (th e day on which the local St. Andrew's 
Society was formed). Also at Madison and at the Epis- 



192 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

copal mission, Nashota, I gave three Scotch entertain- 
ments, and elsewhere gave evenings with the poets. 
Leaving Waukesha we again took up our abode in Mil- 
waukee, and there our eldest born, Mary Ann, was united 
in marriage by Rev. Mr. Love to W. H. Williams. The 
slave power about this time assumed an encroaching 
attitude. The unanswerable arguments of Sumner 
against that villainous power in his place as a represent- 
ative of the people were met by the bludgeon or heavy 
cane of a consistent exponent of the then peculiar 
institution. And it was worthy of remark that for such 
striking arguments and such signal service the perpe- 
trator was presented by certain women with a golden- 
headed cane. It became a matter of great solicitude 
with the American people as to who should be 
nominated for president for the ensuing term of four 
years, and the anti-slavery portion, with whom I ranked, 
was not a little disappointed in the nomination of 
Abraham Lincoln. The choice of the party seemed to 
fall on W. H. Seward, but the judgment of Horace 
Greeley ran counter thereto, and proposed the more 
suitable man for the crisis. Impatient of control, the 
pro-slavery element, accustomed to rule, acted as if 
they would rather rule in hell than serve in heaven. 
Such, indeed, was their infatuation and traitorous 
ambition that nothing short of civil war could 
satiate. Early in i860 I went ahead of my family 
to Chicago, where we lived twenty - three years 
and experienced many vicissitudes. I have had the 
satisfaction of seeing all my daughters married and 
happy. The shading of the domestic picture is to be 
found in the dealings of death. The first sad blow of 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON. 193 

that dread messenger fell on my only surviving son, 
John Washington/ 27^ years of age, in whose death, 
from hemorrhage of the lungs, I not only lost a dear son, 
but in confidence a friend. Of the cause of his death I 
have something to say hereafter. Next of the family to 
pass away, after two painful operations for cancer, was 
poor Margaret, who bore her dreadful sufferings with 
remarkable fortitude, and died on the 25th of January, 
1864, leaving two children, Alice and David. James 
Kavanaugh, too, was stricken down in his manly, robust 
youth, leaving two children, Jeanie and Marion, to be 
supported and brought into society by dint of the 
easel of their talented mother in Milwaukee. The 
Williams branch, also, was destined to taste of the 
scathing visitations of the destroying angel. Two fine 
children were snatched from their embrace at Fox 
Lake, and George, their only son, a most promising, 
bright boy, was taken from us at Milwaukee. Two 
noble girls, Hattie and May, survive to bless and 
comfort their sorrowing parents. Annie and her two 
daughters, Daisy and Mabel, both recently married, are 
happy. 

We left the Badger State in i860, and found the 
court house yard of Chicago occupied with all the 
habiliments of war in the dire expectation of the dogs 
being let loose. Nor had they long to wait. Too 
soon, to the eternal disgrace of Beauregard, the suicidal 
sounds of Fort Sumter were borne upon the breeze. 
My early efforts in Chicago were attended with success, 
and in 1864 I joined the St. Andrew's Society. My 
business at that time carried me among the machine 
shops, in which many Scotchmen were employed, who 
13 



194 AUTOBIOGKAPHICAL REMINISCENCES. 

nearly to a man were ready to argue against the pro- 
priety of becoming members thereof, on the ground 
chiefly of exclusiveness. Five dollars for the annual 
dinner was too steep for a workingman, the objector 
supposing that the whole of that sum was expended in 
the dinner. Hence the idea of forming a Caledonian 
Club in 1865. The club was formed, Robert Harvey, 
Esq., chief. 



CHAPTER XXV. 



I charge thee, fling away ambition: 

By that sin fell the angels, how can man then, 

The image of his Maker, hope to win by't ? 

Love thyself last; cherish those hearts that hate thee: 

Corruption wins not more than honesty. 

Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace, 

To silence envious tongues. 

THE blood and treasure poured out so freely in 
the suppression of the rebellion were by no 
means offered up on the shrine of freedom. Notwith- 
standing Abraham Lincoln had expressed himself in 
controversy to the effect that a nation half free and 
half slave could not long exist, he felt constrained 
under the constitution to swear that under his rule he 
should do his best to keep it so. The removal of that 
foul blot, which had so long disgraced our otherwise 
fair escutcheon, we owe to the exigencies of war: show- 
ing that terrible as war is, it is not the worst of evils 
that afflict our erring race. The cost of that dreadful 
ordeal is most abundantly compensated by making 
this nation what it is. Never till I die can I cease to 
remember the intoxicating news of the fall of Rich- 
mond in Chicago. But oh ! how fleet the overjoy ! 
The bells had hardly ceased to vibrate on that national 
jubilation ,when lo ! the wires proclaimed the foul mur- 
der of the idol of a joyous people — Abraham Lincoln 
— at the hands of a daft theatrical, who shall here be 
nameless, stimulated by the blind enemies of " freedom " 
behind. The manner of the taking-off of that great, 
good man needs not any comment here. It is patent 

195 



196 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

to the world, and lamented by every well-regulated 
mind the world contains. The perpetrator of this deed 
of darkness evaded justice for about fourteen dreadful 
days, to be hunted and shot down like a wild beast. 
Where his body lies is known to very few. The incip- 
ient elements of this rebellion were characterized by a 
species of craft, or what may be termed low cunning, 
which reflects anything but credit to the prominent 
movers of the lost cause. For instance, take the con- 
duct of Floyd. That gentleman occupied the office of 
secretary of war under James Buchanan — an office 
fraught with the utmost importance. In the hands of 
conservative patriotism a bulwark; in the hands of a 
traitor, dreadfully dangerous. 

The part Floyd played in treacherous lust, 

Betraying of a nation's trust, 

While those in high power were sleeping — 

The potent means in his keeping 

Were ceded to the nation's foes, 

That deadlier might fall their blows 

Against our government and laws, 

While they exult in fiend's applause, 

In hopes that on the nation's ruin 

To build an odious despotism. 
We have reason, I think, to thank heaven it was 
otherwise ruled. It was during the civil war that we 
had the misfortune to lose our only son — John Wash- 
ington. I may here remark that that portion of his 
time which ought to have been devoted to out-door 
recreation while running his photographic gallery was 
spent in the cultivation of the arts of drawing and 
painting, which told on his lungs. In pursuit of art he 
went to New York, thence to Montreal, and improved 
in health greatly, and was on the eve of marriage with 



OF DAVID JOHNSTOX. 197 

a Miss Fraser in that city when we received the unwel- 
come news that he was prostrate from hemorrhage of 
the lungs, with fears that a second attack might prove 
fatal. No time must be lost in getting him home. 
His brother-in-law, John Balfour, to whom he was 
much attached, volunteered his services to repair to 
Canada and fetch the poor fellow home to die, which, 
with much care and delicacy, he performed to the sat- 
isfaction of all the members of the family. But it 
required only a few short months to finish the progress 
of the dire disease on his poor, emaciated frame. His 
remains were interred in Rosehill cemetery, nor had 
they long to lie alone, for in about three years the 
second grave in our little lot had to open to receive 
his sister Margaret. Maggie suffered much agony with 
great patience, and rallied sufficiently after her first 
operation to enable her to participate in a New Year's 
family gathering, whereat there were twenty members 
sitting down to dinner. All present entertained lively 
hopes of her recovery, but in a few days the viru- 
lent monster showed symptoms of having been only 
" scotched, not killed." 

The loss of the Lady Elgin, January 18, and the 
great fire of Chicago merit a passing notice here ; the 
former in i860, the latter in 1871. 

THE LADY ELGIN DISASTER. 

States and nations in their endeavors to dispense 
with large standing armies find it necessary to use 
means by which to strengthen the volunteer arm. 

Military companies deemed reliable are furnished 
with arms, accoutrements and halls wherein to drill, etc., 
at the public expense. In seasons of political excite- 



198 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

ment, however, when partisanship runs high and mani- 
festations of disloyalty ooze out, or, in other words, 
whensoever the attitude of a company shall become 
dubious as to how these arms shall be pro or con directed 
in case of a popular outbreak against the public peace, 
it becomes the duty of the governor of the state to 
cite the officer in command to the seat of government, 
and there subject him to a personal interrogatory, and 
on being found unreliable deprive his company of all 
their arms and military privileges whatsoever. 

The party inimical to the election of Abraham 
Lincoln in i860 was pretty outspoken, and the patriot- 
ism of not a few in Milwaukee fell under the suspicion 
of the state authorities. One of the suspects was Cap- 
tain Barry, who was summoned to Madison to explain 
his position, or rather his sentiments, and, as far as he 
knew, or was willing to expose, those of the company 
under his command. The result of this inquiry proved 
adverse to the company, and disarmament was the re- 
sult. But the boys, being spirited, and smarting under 
the frown of the state, resolved to keep up their organ- 
ization by procuring guns of their own, and to raise 
the necessary means resolved on chartering the Lady 
Elgin to Chicago and back to Milwaukee, which, being 
accomplished, a very numerous party (about 400), pro- 
vided with fine music, awaited the arrival of the 
steamer on the wharf at Milwaukee for some hours, 
notwithstanding the weather was rather rough. The 
passage to Chicago was spent in dancing and merry- 
making. On the early morning of one tempestuous 
day the Lady Elgin, with her precious freight of gay, 
light-hearted souls, arrived, and as the hour of de- 



OF DAVID JOHNSTOX. 199 

parture from Chicago was fixed for 1 1 p.m. the interim 
gave ample opportunity of doing the lions of Chicago, 
which was duly done. The weather in the meantime 
had increased in violence, and Captain Wilson, of the 
Elgin, was requested to delay his starting until morn- 
ing, but having cattle on board, and other merchandise 
for the north, he could not comply therewith. And 
well do I remember on retiring to bed hearing through 
the howling storm of that fatal night the sounds of the 
strains of that music which was destined to usher them 
all, or nearly all, into eternity ! And such was the hasty 
desire to resume that fascinating pastime (I am in- 
formed) that the steamer had scarcely cleared the lights 
of the harbor when the figurative marriage bell was 
ne'er so gay as with that joyous party, bound as they 
were by ties most sacred — by blood relationship, by 
intermarriage, by nationality, by political proclivity, 
and by religious faith. A more genial and happy com- 
pany it were difficult to conceive^ A thorough knowl- 
edge of the object of the excursion was doubtless con- 
fined to the few, and the youthful members, having con- 
fidence in their leader, took for granted that to pur- 
chase warlike weapons with a portion of their surplus 
earnings was an act entitled to praise — at least, to be 
above censure. Be that as it may, I have no doubt 
but there were many on that fatal errand who never 
bestowed a thought upon the purport of the expedi- 
tion. It is safe to say that in cases of this kind con- 
science is a light ingredient. There were a few pas- 
sengers on their way north who secured berths on 
the ill-fated ship in Chicago, thereby adding to the 
doomed number, among whom were Mr. Ingram, the 



200 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

distinguished editor and proprietor of the Illustrated 
London News, and his son. Notwithstanding the 
night was dark and stormy, so bent on pleasure were 
the youthful excursionists that the lights of the harbor 
had scarcely waned when dancing was resumed, and up 
to the fatal moment was with hilarity kept up. 

When about two hours out of Chicago, and abreast 
of Winnetka, the mirth and music of over four hundred 
young people were in less time than I require to write 
it turned to weeping and wailing. A lumber-laden 
schooner, by some culpable blunder in reading the 
lights, ran straight into the larboard quarter of the 
steamer. Oh ! the horror of that crash. It was soon 
discovered that the damage sustained was such as to 
cut off all hope of saving the ship, or even of saving 
a soul on board. Already she was perceptibly sinking,, 
and rapidly, by displacement of her treacherous support, 
forming that fearful gulf yawning to swallow up four 
hundred happy creatures in the morning of their lives. 
Comparatively happy those that with the sinking ship 
went down ! Most of those who clung to floating 
fragments were doomed to perish in the angry surL 
Among those who w T ere so destroyed was Capt. Wilson. 
He had improvised a raft of hatches, whereon he suc- 
ceeded in reaching the surf with fourteen persons cling- 
ing thereto, but* such was the violence of the waves 
lining the shore that the raft no sooner touched the 
land than it went. to pieces, and all on board were 
drowned or killed by the floating debris of the wreck. 

Wilson was one of the most experienced and careful 
captains on these lakes. A number of warm, admiring 
friends survive to lament his loss. It appeared by the 



OF DAVID JOHKSTO^. 201 

hole in his forehead that he had received his death 
wound from being violently thrown against some float- 
ing part of the wreck. 

Among the few that were saved may be mentioned 
the bass-drummer of the band, who, by corking up 
the sound-hole of his drum, improvised a buoy, on 
which he safely drifted ashore. For many days the 
bodies of the unfortunates were deposited for identifi- 
cation around the court house of Chicago, and during 
those days the influx of the bereaved from the sister 
city in search of their lost dear ones made the scene 
sufficiently heart-rending, until the sanitary safety of 
the city demanded a change, and * ever afterward all 
victims found of the ill-fated steamer were deposited 
among the shrubbery of the old cemetery (now form- 
ing part of Lincoln Park). At length identification be- 
came impossible, which to anxious searchers was most 
distressing. The remains of Mr. Ingram were found, 
and identified by his gold watch and other personal 
property. They were taken to the Briggs House, and 
thence by countrymen, members of the St. George's 
Society of Illinois, to the railroad depot, on their way 
to his beloved Nottingham. Those of his son, I believe, 
were never discovered. 

THE GREAT FIRE OF CHICAGO. 

On Saturday, the 8th day of October, 1 871, there 
had been a strong breeze blowing all day from Chicago's 
dangerous quarter (the northwest), when a fire broke 
out on Canal street, near to Van Buren street, which 
well-nigh bade defiance to the efforts of one of the most 
efficient fire departments in the world. Nor could the 



202 AUTOBIOGAPHICA.L REMINISCENCES. 

firemen for one moment relax their noble efforts until 
the morning of the 9th, after the destruction of valuable 
property covering sixteen acres of the business part of 
the city. 

To the exhausted condition of the firemen on the 
9th has been mainly attributed the fierce, ungovernable 
hold which characterized the early features of that 
dreadful disaster, which claimed for its ravages through 
the principal streets of that splendid city a distance of 
four and a half miles. 

For an accurate description of this calamity the 
reader is referred to a volume written by Mr. Good- 
speed, embellished copiously and graphically by wood 
engravings of excellent quality. 

This visitation had the effect of provoking the 
benevolent sympathy of the Christian world into boiling 
heat. 

The amount of money, food and raiment poured 
into the hands of the relieving committees, of Chicago 
was marvelous, and I am sorry to say that while the 
fire proved the ruin of many an honest, struggling 
family there were those who, by barefaced, unscrupulous 
means, realized positions to which they never could 
attain by legitimate effort. Having lost in the fire my 
inimitable Voigtlander viewing tube and all my bread- 
winning tools and chemicals, in the way of assistance 
I acknowledge the receipt of $135 from the bounty of 
Scottish societies abroad ; $100 through the medium 
of the St. Andrew's Society of Illinois, and $35 through 
the Caledonian Club. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 



" Each year to ancient friendship adds 
A ring as to an oak, which, without the aid of any merit 
Of our own, becomes more and more precious." 

IT is painful to record the downfall of the grand old 
Caledonian Club of Chicago, the origin of which in 
1865 may here be dated, for although we stood indebted 
to General Ducat for the insurance on our burnt library 
of two thousand dollars, this amount, added to the bal- 
ance on hand, forming a handsome sum, and being 
just at this juncture at a loss to find suitable ground 
whereon to hold our annual picnic, formed the double 
incentive to induce the club to venture into the bewitch- 
ing yet dangerous arena of real estate. Hence the col- 
lapse of one of the most healthy and promising organi- 
zations that ever blessed the efforts of the Scottish 
element anywhere. Alas ! for the instability of human 
affairs. Should the reader be desirous of obtaining 
more information thereof I refer him to William Forrest, 
who is still chief, and who holds the charter and docu- 
ments of the club in his possession, with a hopeful 
pertinacity that reflects credit to his honest, loving 
heart. As for myself, I bless God for the memory 
which enables me to live those happy days over again. 
While Chicago was, phcenix-like, rising in tenfold 
grandeur out of her own ashes, I became for the winter 

203 



204 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES. 

of 1871-2 a book peddler, undertaking to supply the 
citizens of St. Louis, or such as would buy a book with 
a copy of Goodspeed's story of the great fire, selling to 
the tune of one volume per diem during the winter, 
clearly proving that as a book canvasser I was anything 
but a success. On my return to Chicago I took the 
route of the Illinois river, which, with a little divergence, 
gave me a chance of revisiting the scene of my earliest 
American experience in search of a home. I found 
the whole community in a very thriving condition; 
my quarter-section not only well cultivated, but 
yielding coal for the market. My appearance, like that 
of the Rip Van Winkle of Irving, had assumed in the 
long interim an aspect which placed it almost beyond 
recognition. Indeed, the unmarried daughter of the 
Oliver family (Annie) was the only person who could 
salute me by name. Staying a few days with John 
Turnbull, and paying a hasty visit to the neighbors 
around, I returned by Kewaunee and Elgin to Chicago, 
and recommenced viewing. On August 14, 1873, it 
fell to my lot, as chief of the Chicago Caledonian 
Club, to give a name to its beautiful grounds, which 
were, in the presence of a large and brilliant audience, 
denominated Chicago Caledonian Park, and which were 
intended to furnish a healthful retreat occasionally 
from the cares of business within the confines of a city 
which in magnitude was rapidly becoming metropoli- 
tan. The above park was, by the action of the Chicago, 
Milwaukee and St. Paul railway, rendered nugatory. 
In fact, so far as pertaining to the purposes for which 
the purchase was made, the ground might as well have 
formed part of one of the islands of the sea. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 



AND now, as the journey of life progresses, I come 
t to the year 1883. My daughter Annie, the wife 
of Dr. Stoddart, at this time paid us a visit from San 
Francisco. She warmly invited us to go back with her, 
over the frowning Rockies and away into the land of 
gold, the great Eldorado of '49. To her we have given 
our consent, but wait for a special invitation from the 
Doctor, nor had we long to wait. A letter from Archie 
settled the matter, the purport of which was not to 
come home without the old folks, thereby giving us a 
hearty welcome, which the experience of two years has 
failed to dim. 

And now comes the ordeal of painful parting of 
real friends. (For God's sake ! tell me not the world is 
cold and selfish.) The declining years of my four-score 
have been much sweetened by very kind friends. For 
all their generosity I am grateful. The good-by at the 
depot on the 15th of July, 1883, was too touching te 
dwell upon. Nor did it end there. Our train passing 
through Elgin, there we found a host of friends under 
the auspices of Mr. and Mrs. Martin and family, laden 
down with delicate provisions for our long journey. 

Having yielded to the importunities of our two 
daughters to spend our golden wedding with them in 
the far west, we face the setting sun in all his glory. 

205 



206 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMI^CSCENCES 

The journey proved very pleasurable to me. My ad- 
miration arose to ecstasy by the varied grandeur of the 
scenery, the easy accommodation of the transit, and 
the marvelous advance of civil engineering which en- 
abled it to overcome the gigantic natural obstacles 
that stood in its way. Which to admire the most is 
a problem not easy to solve. Suffice it that when we 
arrived at Oakland I wished the journey lengthened a 
few more hundred miles. We were greeted by many 
kind friends, who, in one of those splendid boats owned 
by the Central Pacific railway, carried us across that 
magnificent bay to San Francisco. Thence, after a 
refreshing meal at the house of our son-in-law, Dr. 
Stoddart, a lady drove me to the beach, giving me a 
taste of the trade-wind, which in its passage over the 
intervening sand dunes fills the air with an imponder- 
able dust, to the detriment of the inhabitants, which, 
together with frequent fogs and the absence of rain 
during the summer months, renders the climate of San 
Francisco anything but agreeable. Still, I believe its 
hygienic condition will compare favorably with cities of 
its size. 

It may be asked, " What could be found in travel- 
ing over that barren region to evoke pleasurable sen- 
sations ?" My answer in all humility would be the 
following quotation from the poet : 

" Of all the passions that possess mankind, 
The love of novelty rules most the mind. 
In search of this, from realm to realm we roam, 
Our fleets come fraught with ev'ry folly home." 

The volumes of a thousand graphic writers would 
fail to convey the faintest idea of this marvelous wil- 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON. 207 

derness, and therefore to appreciate this apparent 
waste of God's handiwork it must be seen. Tis said 
God makes nothing in vain, and who knows but in the 
process of scientific discovery the people of a thousand 
years hence may marvel at the ignorance of the pres- 
ent age touching this seeming anomaly, which to the 
impatient traveler produces a sense of monotony, 
while to the inquiring mind a feeling of wonder is in- 
spired. Indeed, I already perceive through the col- 
umns of the Chronicle that a number of acres of this 
waste land in the adjoining state of Nevada have been 
reclaimed, on which there waves a promising crop of 
wheat, enough to inspire one with a lively hope for the 
future of millions of our race who cling to the fascina- 
tions of the city in order to escape the drudgery in- 
volved in the reduction of the soil. 

Traveling across the plains and .mountains in a sec- 
ond-class conveyance is considered by many to be 
somewhat irksome. My experience deprives me the 
privilege of sharing their gloom. 

There must be something lacking in the individual 
who can be otherwise than pleasurably transported from 
sea to sea by such marvelous means, in so short a space 
of time, across a continent abounding at least in great 
variety if not in beauty to his lack-luster eye. I do 
admit that the pioneers crawling through that ever- 
lasting region of sage brush and alkali, drawn by lame 
horses and worn-out oxen, must have had their pa- 
tience pretty severely taxed for tedious weeks. The 
same space is now traversed in as many days as re- 
quired weeks previous to the Credit Mobilier. The end 
of such wonderful accomplishments goes a long way to 



208 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES. 

justify the means. To carry a railway over this conti- 
nent by honest, plodding every-day maxims would 
have required more working days than a century could 
number. Therefore, scrupulosity had to divest itself 
of its starch and stoop to measures extraordinary. Per- 
sonally I am grateful for an easy, pleasurable transit 
over a country which I had for many years desired to 
traverse, and when my allotted time of two years is up 
I hope to be able to take the southern route for Chi- 
cago, or, should the June month be too hot, I shall 
have no objections to retrace our steps through Nevada 
and Ogden, which I enjoyed so much hitherward. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 



c< Sweet are the uses of adversity; which, like the toad, 

Ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head; 
And this our life, exempt from public haunt, 
Finds tongues in trees, books in running brooks, 
Sermons in stones, and good in everything." 

— Shakespeare. 

THE opinion of one who has spent but 365 days in 
a city, methinks, cannot be entitled to much re- 
spect when written in the spirit of criticism. I would 
not seek to imitate the Frenchman who, after chatter- 
ing a few days with his countrymen in his cafe in 
Leicester Square, London, rushes back to his faubourg 
to afflict the world with a treatise on the manners and 
customs of England. At the same time I may be 
allowed to indulge in a few remarks on those peculiar- 
ities which attracted my attention. No stranger can 
traverse the main artery of the plan without detecting 
the grievous blunder of the engineer who laid out the 
city of San Francisco, causing a great waste of precious 
land and much danger to pedestrians. Perhaps it may 
be advanced that the topography of the site denied the 
adoption of right angles, but that idea will fail in the 
face of a careful survey. Just here it may be proper, 
as a set-off, in the name of the majority, to thank the 
generous-hearted Lotta, who in her munificence pre- 
14 209 



210 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

sented San Francisco, the city of her birth, with a 
fountain, which stands not only as a thing of expensive 
beauty but as a shield of protection to the humble 
traveler as he is jostled across the most dangerous of 
all the spots that disgrace one of the most beautiful 
thoroughfares on the continent. 

Notwithstanding the above supposed defect San 
Francisco is a noble and beautiful city, containing nu- 
merous splendid buildings, churches, schools, theaters, 
and public halls without number. With a meager sup- 
ply of water the fire department is superb. I noticed 
that while a large proportion of the dwellings are con- 
structed of wood it is rare to have an extensive fire. 
Some of the streets are well paved, while others are 
struggling to get rid of the barbarous cobble-stone pave- 
ment, which, in the city's primitive state, the pioneers, 
without regard to size or fitness, were wont to use. 

Here, as almost everywhere, the Scottish element 
thrives. The St. Andrew's Society, the Caledonian 
Club and the Thistle Club are working, each in its own 
course, yet in perfect harmony, together. In every 
nook of that inland sea, called the bay, there are pleas- 
ant places of public resort, which enables societies to 
indulge, by means of the inimitable ferry system exist- 
ing, in the picnic mode of pleasure and reunion, and 
the reader may believe that the Scotch are anything 
but slow to avail themselves of the facilities. And now, 
our golden wedding over, our twelve months' trial of 
the west shore terminated, and the wife and I having a 
little touch of rheumatism, we resolve to try the milder 
climate of Oakland. Before we take the boat suppose 
we take a peep at 



OF DAYID JOHNSTON". 211 

WOODWARD'S GARDEN. 

We cannot afford to pass unnoticed the favorite 
place of resort bearing the above title. 

I am informed that this school, combining practical 
instruction with innocent amusement, emanates from 
the patriotic effort of an individual, and that that indi- 
vidual has passed away. 

In the history of large cities we find the public fre- 
quently indebted to personal enterprise. Thus the 
refined taste and liberal pertinacity of Madame Tussaud 
have culminated in one of the lions of London. It 
would be hard to suppose any one sojourning in the 
metropolis, even for a few days, failing to visit her 
Baker street establishment of wonders. 

In like manner is the community of St. Louis in- 
debted to Mr. Shaw (an English gentleman) for his 
princely gift of his garden and museum to the city. 

Milwaukee is also beholden to one of her eminent 
brewers (Mr. Schlitz) for the only park of which she 
can boast (now they have the National). The. parks 
and boulevards of Chicago are the wonder of the world, 
for so young a city. They are supported by local tax- 
ation, which doubtless falls heavily on all adjacent prop- 
erty, while the drives are new. The incentive spirit of 
the gigantic scheme emanated from the late Col. Bowen, 
a far-seeing man, and doubtless the growing increase of 
the marketable value of that property has served to 
convince the owners of the soundness of the enter- 
prise. 

In the early days of San Francisco Mr. Woodward, 
the founder of his place of public resort, had kept 
the What Cheer Hotel for many years during the 



212 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

wild frenzy of its gold-hunting mania. Prospering in 
business he there founded what now constitutes the 
basis of this wonderful place of popular amusement — 
his museum, which he moved to his private residence 
on quitting the hotel business. During the national 
struggle of 1861-64 the expense of sending troops to 
the front placed California necessarily in the rear of her 
quota. 

But if nature placed her beyond the reach of the 
fighting front she forgot not her equally important 
duties of healing and nurturing in the rear, as her quota 
to the sanitary fund at the close of the war bore ample 
testimony. In raising the needful funds Mr. Wood- 
ward took a prominent part, and the use to which he 
put his private property in aid of the patriotic move- 
ment may be said to be the advent of one of the lions 
of this wonderful city. In April, 1884, I visited this 
place, and for admittance fee of twenty-five cents 
feasted my eyes with more sights than memory will 
serve to enumerate. Overlooking the museum for an- 
other day I am struck with the healthy appearance of 
all the specimens of zoology, particularly the lioness 
and her three cubs, the amusing variety of the monkey 
tribe, and the goat carriage, riding swings, and other 
amusements for youth in this arena, the camera ob- 
scura and the circular boat, the wonders of the aqua- 
rium and piscatorial variety and propagation, and the 
ingenious subterraneous methods of displaying the 
specimens of the aquatic school. 

Now the bell rings and thousands throng to see the 
drama. Here the ear-splitting sounds of a thousand 
throats of Young America startle the stranger, and at the 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON. 213 

same time fill him with surprise that notwithstanding 
the latitude given to youth the order of the theater is 
good. The performance is light and fair, but such a 
pair of acrobats I never beheld. If there was a bone 
left in their bodies it would be a puzzle to locate it. 

We then repair to the music hall, where, in addi- 
tion to good vocal and instrumental music, the out- 
ward man can be refreshed with the choicest viands 
and beverages, after which we take a general view of 
the fascinating spot in all its richest spring beauty, and 
on our way to the gate call on the sea lions, the mon- 
strous alligators, and other wonders of the deep. Sur- 
charged with the perfume of ten thousand flowers, w r e 
make our exit, and feel like treating ourselves to an- 
other visit to this municipal blessing. On the 5th of 
October, 1883, we spent a very pleasant day on board 
the Enos Soule, a fine ship at anchor in the bay, where 
she had lain awaiting a charter for many months (an 
evidence of the extraordinary depression of the period 
of mercantile interests). The day was fine, the light 
wind approaching the ship favorable, and the entertain- 
ment on board sumptuous. Mrs. Captain Laurens, the 
friend of my daughter, generally accompanied her hus- 
band on his voyages to distant parts of the globe. 

The menu reflected credit alike on the caterer and 
(Wing Hi) the cook, who, with the mate and carpenter, 
was the only man retained on board. The carpenter 
(Israel Pearson) was communicative, and I took an in- 
terest in his yarns, particularly the one following of the 
polite attention of the redoubtable Captain Semmes, of 
the Alabama, of rebellious fame. " In October, 1862," 
said Israel, " I was carpenter on board the La Fayette, 



214 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

Captain Small (brother to Mrs. Laurens). She was a 
fine ship, two years old, built in Freeport, Maine. We 
were three days out of New York harbor, laden with 
wheat, flour and lard, for Glasgow, when we had the 
misfortune to fall under the lynx eye of Semmes, whose 
first salutation (a shot across our bows) not being 
answered sufficiently prompt to please the man of 
power, his second shot came too near to our cut-water 
to be pleasant. We hove to ; he boarded us, and 
placed our crew in the mortifying position of prisoners 
on board of his corsair craft to witness our good ship 
La Fayette, blessing-bound with her precious cargo, 
sunk before our eyes, in dire memento of our suicidal 
war, the natural result of unhallowed ambition/' 



CHAPTER XXIX. 



From John O'Groat's to Land's End search 
I have not one rod, pole or perch, 
To pay my rent or tithes in church, 
That I can call my own. 

—Hood. 

OAKLAND is a delightful city, well laid out, in 
the county of Alameda, on the east bank of the 
bay, which at this point is inconveniently shallow. 
To meet this difficulty the Central Pacific Railroad 
Company was, in order to answer the demands of 
an immense traffic to and from the great city, put to 
an enormous expense, by running a solid way with a 
double track of steel rails out one and a half miles to 
deep water, the terminus sufficiently widened whereon 
to build an extensive depot, which is, for comfort and 
convenience to the traveling public, surpassed by none. 
In addition to the above grand facilities the same 
corporation, for the privilege of running their trains 
through one of the streets of Oakland, agreed for a 
term of years to run a train to and fro every half hour, 
with nine convenient stoppages, without any charge, 
much to the infinite delight of Young America, who, to 
the annoyance of passengers and regardless of danger, 
play at hide-and-seek on the train. The drives around 
Oakland are remarkably beautiful, and the kindness 

215 



216 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

we received at the hands of our neighbors can never 
be forgotten. By means of their carriages we visited 
every spot of interest within reach, and at great expense 
a neighbor of Clara's treated us to a journey to an enter- 
tainment at the Hotel Del Monte, at Monterey, which 
trip, together with the privilege of enjoying the rich 
country leading thereto, is held in grateful remembrance; 
also the pleasant ride among the foot-hills of Berkeley, 
under favor of the same family. Within a radius of 
ten miles this may be safely pronounced one of the 
most wonderful and beautiful spots on the conti- 
nent of America. This eastern shore of the bay is 
teeming with population: Berkeley, Brighton, Oakland, 
Alameda, might be said to be one town, and away be- 
yond, ascending the foot-hills where my daughter Clara 
dwells. Still further out among these beautiful hills, 
are the chalybeate springs of Piedmont, a favorite place 
of public resort, where there is a well-patronized hotel,, 
reachable for ten cents from the center of Oakland by 
street cars. The springs trickle from the rocks at the bot- 
tom of a very deep, romantic dell, and are evidently much 
impregnated with metallic substances, and are said to be 
eminently medicinal, — in short, a perfect panacea for cer- 
tain diseases. From the neighboring heights are at- 
tainable rich views of the surrounding scenery, including 
the bay and its islands, and Lake Merritt. Here, also, 
is Mountain View Cemetery, ramifying among the beau- 
tiful foot-hills, teeming with roses of such varied tints 
and perfection as I never beheld in the east, all shel- 
tered under the bolder mountains in the distance whose 
somber majesty makes the scene so bewitchingly com- 
plete. 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON. 217 

To the north and west of this spot, on rising ground, 
is the bathing ground of Alameda, where we spent a 
week. This is a place of great resort during the bath- 
ing season, and a number of merchants across the bay- 
make a permanent residence here, who show great taste 
in their splendid gardens. As a public drive the con- 
templated boulevard around Lake Merritt will be the 
finest on the continent. 

The University of California is situated among the 
foot-hills of Berkeley, a few miles to the north of Oakland. 
The buildings are plain and substantial, and the grounds 
are extensive and well laid out, and adorned by a moun- 
tain stream running through a romantic glen, whose 
banks are ornamented with rich foliage and the finest 
and most grotesque-shaped oaks I ever beheld. From 
the buildings and the elevated grounds behind you 
obtain the most advantageous view of the celebrated 
Golden Gate, the bay, with its islands and its thriving 
towns in every nook, teeming with a healthy popula- 
tion. 

Within a few miles of this delightful spot is Shell 
Mound Park, one of those enchanting places of public 
resort which appear in California to be much in requi- 
sition, and of which, I must say, the supply is more 
than equal to the demand. Picnicing is here reduced 
to a science. Churches, Sabbath and secular schools, 
societies open and secret, professions, trades, nation- 
alities, pioneers antique and modern, all have their clubs^ 
and all relax their labors by the periodical picnic. 

The Scotch, famed for their cordial affiliation with 
the inhabitants of the country of their adoption, are 
here emphatically at home. 



218 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL KEMINISCENCES. 

In Oakland we hired the house of Mr. Smith, on 
Sycamore street, which was furnished, intending to 
remain till we departed for the east. This is a lovely 
spot, centering within convenient reach of the finest 
drives through splendid scenery such as I have never 
before beheld, with an endless variety of roses and 
geraniums and all the hardier flowering plants in full 
bloom, perfuming the air with their rich effulgent beauty 
now, while I dot it down, this Christmas morn of 1884. 
Would that my pen were graphic enough to do justice 
to the blessings by which we are here surrounded, but, 
like all mundane things, they are evanescent, and the 
hour is silently but surely approaching when the 
dreaded word "farewell" must be pronounced. We 
flatter ourselves that the parting pain is shared by 
dear Clara, by her family, and by her numerous Oak- 
land friends, who have proved so kind to us. 



CHAPTER XXX. 



11 A careless thing, who placed his choice in chance, 
Nursed by the legends of his land's romance. 
Eager to hope, but not less firm to bear; 
Acquainted with all feelings, save despair." 

— Byron, 

TEN dollars each, in addition to the usual fare 
($52.50), secured the privilege of joining the 
teachers of Oakland in an excursion to the east. The 
incidents attending this journey were of a many and 
varied character, partaking of tragedy, comedy and 
serio-comic. On reaching Sacramento a party joined 
the excursion consisting of a lady and her two children 
(Mrs. Dr. Tinckham), the eldest a beautiful girl 16 
years old, the youngest a boy about 8. The train had 
reached but a short distance when, at Rocklin, the 
report of a pistol was heard from a car in the rear 
of us. In common with others I rushed to the 
melancholy scene to behold that beautiful young lady 
in her mother's embrace, breathing her last. The ball 
had penetrated her heart, and such was the sym- 
pathetic confusion at the time that the fellow who did 
the shooting was suffered to escape. Opinion on the 
train was pretty evenly divided as to whether the 
tragical event was the result of accident or design. In 
either case, had the scoundrel been caught it would 
have stood hard with him. 

219 



220 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

We are slow in remedial measures to check a fear- 
fully growing evil — the concealed-weapon curse. While 
we lament the tragic feature of our excursion, we must 
not omit the serio-comic portion thereof. On our way 
through the valley of Utah from Ogden to Denver, by 
the narrow-gauge Rio Grande railroad, the party was 
divided up, some desirous of seeing the lions of Salt 
Lake City, others anxious to proceed to Denver. The 
latter party we joined, and proceeded on our way to 
Denver. On approaching Provo City I inquired of the 
conductor how long we stopped there for dinner. His 
laconic answer was, " thirty minutes/* Having dined, I 
resolved to employ my time taking a photograph of 
the snow-capped mountain of Nebo. It seemed posed 
and draped ready for its picture. I had succeeded in 
posing the mountain and had him in focus when the 
train was backed, cutting off the view 1 . I had just time 
to throw the plate away at the depot and behold the 
train growing beautifully less in the distance. Here 
was I, penniless, left among the Mormons, with my 
wife, daughter and ticket retreating from my helpless 
view. I seated myself on a bench and ventilated my 
feelings by perpetrating the following doggerel : 

This smiling morn of June, 

By Utah's lovely banks, 
I find my heart in tune 

To offer up my thanks, 
That thus I'm left behind 

This paradise to view. 
The faults let others find, 

I sing of merits due. 
Fleeing from the tyrant, 

A helpless, homeless race, 
Here they found a desert, 



OF DAVID JOHtfSTOtf. 221 

New trials stern to face. 
Now a smiling garden 

Meets the wondering gaze, 
The traveler stands aghast 

At the marvel of the phase; 
Nor has he time to probe 

The every ways and means, 
By which the broad disparity 

Is made to lie between; 
Whereas he found a wilderness, 

A sterile, barren waste, 
Now a scene of beauty 

Adorned by arts and taste. 

While thus engaged, the telegrapher, seeing me 
writing from his window, asked me if I was communi- 
cating with the train for my ticket. When shown the 
fruits of my study he seemed tickled, and asked per- 
mission to copy the lines in his journal. Being allowed 
he immediately became my friend. He proffered his 
services to row me on the lake, and in two hours 
handed me a note from my thoughtful Annie, inclosing 
my ticket and a $5 bill, with- instructions to my erring 
steps to take the train on the following day with the 
remainder of the party. Extraordinary kindness ap- 
peared to be brought into full play by my mishap. 
Well entertained at the hotel in Provo I took the train 
as directed on the following day. The ladies of the 
party partook of no delicacy that I must not share. On 
reaching the grand junction we were met by a telegram 
announcing the destruction of a bridge between us and 
Denver, and consequently had to retrace our steps to 
Ogden, thence by Cheyenne to Denver — a city which, 
for enterprise, was more like Chicago than any I had 
seen — which we reached two hours after our folks 



222 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES 

had started for Omaha, where, after a separation of 
some four days, we met to traverse the rich fertile 
fields of Iowa and Illinois together to the live city of 
Chicago, where we were in two weeks after our arrival 
visited by our benefactor, Dr. Stoddart, who, in his 
munificence, purchased a splendid new brick house 
for us, wherein to dwell and end our days when 
the time comes for us to go ; and now this juncture 
suggests itself to me as a fitting time to close this 
desultory record. Notwithstanding its being a pledge 
redeemed, I go to press with fear and trembling. I 
have endeavored, by interspersing such historical mat- 
ter as came from time to time under my notice, to 
tone down that crude personality which a volume of 
this nature is apt to assume, rather than make any 
attempt to embellish. I ask my circle of friends to be 
tender in their criticism. Beyond that circle I have 
not the presumption to look. 

On politics in these memoirs I have been somewhat 
reticent. However, I think due to my democratic 
friends (and they are numerous as they are respected) 
some reasons for my clinging so pertinaciously to the 
opposite party. Those friends will doubtless agree 
with me in the assertion that hatred of slavery is 
natural to a Scottish man. This feeling of hatred had 
the effect of drawing me into the ranks of the anti- 
slavery society in London. After residing in that city 
twenty-seven years I became a citizen of this great 
republic, and for ten years voted in Wisconsin by 
virtue of my first papers. It so happened that, landing 
in this country in 1848, I found the agitations of the 
factions pretty high. The slave-power, squirming 



OF DAVID JOHNSTON. 223 

under trammels of former compromises, was assuming 
a bolder front, threatening the stultification of Mason 
and Dixon's line and the measures employed in the 
introduction of Missouri into the Union in 1821. To 
counteract those influences a new platform was formed 
at Buffalo, under the auspices of Mr. Van Buren, called 
the " free-soil platform. " Could there be any marvel 
that I should become attached to that party whose 
proclivities were so much in unison with my past life? 
This party ripened into what is now called the Repub- 
lican party. With its laudable endeavors I have 
drifted, and at this late day regret it not, although I 
think the nation has profited by our defeat at the last 
presidential election. All honor to the present incum- 
bent ! May his noble efforts to purify this grand 
republic from all evils which the bias of party spirit 
inevitably engenders be crowned with success, is the 
sincere wish of the subscriber, D. J. 



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